Nurses are prepared to wait for a response till the 10th of July. If there is no reply until then, the nurses will go on strike.

As is the situation with the country's doctors, Slovenia's nurses have also been striving for the adoption of new workplace norms for decades. After all, it is also one of the unfulfilled strike demands from 2013. At a meeting with the country's health minister in February, it was agreed that the new norms would be adopted by the end of June.

The Nurses Union has not received any answer as to why that hasn't happened yet . The ministry explains that certain working groups have not yet completed their work, which is supposed to be a clear sign from the experts that the document is not yet finished and that there is still a lot more work to be done.

Possible collaboration with doctors
Jelka Mlakar from the Nurses and Midwives Association says that such ignorance on behalf of the ministry is unacceptable: "The matter is simply incomprehensible. In that way they can find excuses and postpone the issue indefinitely. But we have already come to an agreement to activate the pressure from the unions. In the final stage it will of course lead to a strike."

The biggest problem is the lack of staff. The situation is unbearable, not only in the health sector but also in the field of social security. According to some analyses hospitals are need of another 1.500 nurses. Mlakar adds that they don't demand the implementation of such workplace norms overnight, but in the next 10 years. "That would mean 150 medical nurses per year for all 26 hospitals," she explained.

According to the nurses their demands are completely acceptable. If their demands are not met the country's nurses are prepared to join forces with Slovenia's doctors. "It is quite possible that we do end up collaborating. Perhaps we'll offer them a hand, since they still haven't offered us anything. In any case I can't deny that anything is possible," finished Mlakar.

S. I. Radio Slovenia