Medical staff are preparing for a general strike, amid the pay legislation dispute

Employees at hospitals across Romania have begun preparations for a potential general strike, amid growing discontent over a pay legislation bill that the Government may adopt, possibly through an extraordinary session. Representatives of the Sanitas trade union say this is the last form of protest available to them, after notifications sent to the Executive received no response.

Five days of briefings for union leaders

Viorel Hușanu, the leader of Sanitas, told Realitatea Plus that the organisation has already exhausted every available form of protest without result: "We have carried out all these forms of protest, we notified the government, and once again the Prime Minister has not responded — we don't know exactly what has happened with the pay legislation, whether it has been amended, whether it will be adopted or not. We simply don't know anything."

Starting today, over the course of five days, briefings are being held with Sanitas leaders from across the country to establish local strike committees. "If the law is adopted in the form we are aware of, we need to be ready to launch a general strike. We are putting the government on notice of a general strike," Hușanu stated.

How a hospital would operate during a general strike

According to the union leader, the law requires that emergency services be maintained and that at least one third of staff remain at work during a strike. "It is very difficult to manage this. We will need to work with the employer to determine who will be on duty that day and which emergencies will be covered," he explained.

Should the strike go ahead, a triage of medical cases would be necessary: operations that can be postponed and some less critical emergencies would be rescheduled from one day to the next or from one hour to the next. "We don't want the public to suffer, but we are forced to resort to this form of protest because nothing is happening," Hușanu emphasised, adding that the strike would not last the entire day, but only a few hours at the start of the shift.

The Sanitas leader criticised the current form of the pay legislation, which would drastically cut allowances for medical staff: "The allowances are being cut severely — as you all know, only 10% in supplements is being paid — and we do not accept this, we are ready to strike."

Lack of dialogue with an interim-led ministry

Another source of union frustration is the absence of dialogue with the Ministry of Health, which has been under interim leadership for two months. Hușanu said that during this period the ministry's management had not found time for a meeting even on the matter of unblocking vacant posts within the system: "We want a truly stable government, because at the moment we have no one to negotiate with. The Minister of Health, who has been in an interim capacity for two months, has not had five minutes to sit down with us — not on the subject of pay legislation, but on the subject of unblocking posts."

A shortfall of 28,000 posts in healthcare

The union is flagging a national shortfall of approximately 28,000 posts in the healthcare system, a situation also felt at Spitalul Clinic de Urgență Floreasca, one of the largest emergency hospitals in the country. "At the moment we have a shortfall of 28,000 posts across the system — both at Spitalul Floreasca, where we are now, and at other hospitals. We no longer have enough people to work with. We have no doctors, no nurses, no auxiliary staff," Hușanu explained.

He gave a concrete example of the pressure on auxiliary staff: "We have a care assistant who is genuinely running between two floors, or one who is serving meals whilst also having to mop the floors. It simply cannot go on."

The union leader warned of the risk of the healthcare system collapsing if the authorities do not urgently unblock vacant posts: "If we don't unblock these posts now, the system will collapse."

What comes next

The briefings that began today will continue over five days, laying the groundwork for a possible general strike that could affect the operations of hospitals across the country — in particular surgeries, consultations, and treatments that are not classed as emergencies. The final decision on whether to launch the strike will depend on the form in which the pay legislation is adopted, with union members warning that they will not accept any version that significantly reduces allowances for healthcare staff.