Sarajevo Canton’s Government adopted a decision to raise salaries to doctors and dentists in the Canton, thus fulfilling the unions’ demands.

By raising of the salary base coefficients for employees in Canton’s healthcare institutions, the Government fulfilled the Trade Union of Healthcare Employees and the Trade Union of Doctors of Medicine and Dentistry’s demand for a salary increase as stipulated by the collective agreement signed between the employees and the Government, last year.

The collective agreement stipulates that the Government and union representatives should meet annually to discuss salary increase, in line with the increase in revenues in the budget of the cantonal Healthcare Institute.

The Government’s decision stipulates that doctors of medicine and dentists will get an increase of salary base coefficient by 0.4 percent while the salary base coefficient for other employees in the field of medicine will rise by 0.3 percent. This decision will be implemented from September 1, 2018, and it will last until the end of the collective agreement.

Head of the Union of Doctors of Medicine and Dentistry of the Sarajevo Canton, Izet Hocko, told N1 that this decision could have been made a long time ago had it not been for the politics.

“Had it not been for the politics, this would have been resolved a long time ago. No one needed this strike, neither did we, the professionals, nor citizens. We were ready to resolve this in April, this year,” Hocko said.

“Last year we agreed on the collective agreement, and we complied with all our obligations. Our coefficients should have been increased this year, and to continue increasing it quarterly from April 1, and the negotiations should have lasted for 15 days,” Hocko noted. “They (the Government) prolonged this on purpose, so we would start talking right before the general election, so they would give us less money.”