Slovenian doctors up in arms about overtime

The Slovenian minister of health and the head of the physicians' trade union reached a compromise on Wednesday in the dispute over how much doctors are paid by the state for doing overtime. Doctors will once again be on call, but the conflict is not yet over, writes the daily Dnevnik: "For now, but only for now, patients can breathe a sigh of relief, provided the government accepts what Health Minister Dorian Marušič and the head of the physicians' union Konrad Kuštrin agreed yesterday. But if the dispute over standby duty was a rehearsal for the healthcare reform and major changes in the organisation of the healthcare system, we certainly still have cause for worry. … If the government doesn't get clear about what it wants and what it is willing to sacrifice to achieve it, the next round of conflicts will be really explosive."

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