Slovenian hospitals will as of Thursday be able to hire medical specialists from the third countries, the non-EU countries, including Bosnia and Herzegovina, the agencies reported on Thursday.

According to the newly adopted changes to the medical service law in Slovenia, which came into force on Thursday, medical specialists from the non-EU countries can now work in hospitals in that country with the approval of the healthcare minister and guarantees of three other medical specialists in the same field.

The reason behind the law changes are recent resignations and departures of paediatric cardiologists from the University Clinical Centre Ljubljana, which led to the temporary hiring of cardiologists from Croatia, Czech Republic and the USA, carries Hina news agency.

The Government of Slovenia stated that the healthcare minister will be issuing approvals based on the hospitals’ requests and the adopted law changes for a period of up to one year.

Regulations for the employment of foreign doctors in Slovenian healthcare institutions is rather rigorous in terms of getting a work licence because the doctors are required to actively speak Slovenian. The regulations for doctors from the third countries have been even more rigorous but, due to the lack of staff, the conditions have been alleviated.

Slovenian media reported that domestic doctors voiced discontent over the possibility of hiring the foreigners in the healthcare sector, so their trade union requests that the salary system for physicians and dentists is exempted from the tariff scale in order to improve the salaries and work conditions they are satisfied with. “Fides” union said they do not object the hiring of the foreign colleagues in general but they do object higher payments they receive.