Lingienė – behind the scenes of the fight against coronavirus: the reward of epidemiologists “in their hands” is simply deplorable



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R. Lingienė stated in the program that the center lacks the money to hire all the necessary specialists. And this is neither a pandemic nor a problem for this government. This, according to the interlocutor, is the result of a long-term approach.

“I want to emphasize that this problem not only occurred with the COVID-19 infection, it did not arise with this or with the previous government. This lasts for several years. And public health and its institutions seem to have been around for a long time. Speaking of coronavirus, we were missing around 130 no posts, no posts, but they are not covered by money. This means that we cannot accept new people because there is nothing to pay wages from, ”said R. Lingienė.

He said that the salary of employees is less than 650 euros and that of officials is about 800 euros.

“The state itself recognizes that so many positions are needed in the institution, but does not allocate funds to them. Here is the whole paradox. And the existing staff are epidemiologists, specialists in the public health center, whose work is now critical, and they, of course, receive subsidies and bonuses. But if they are not received, their salaries will be less than 640 EUR and the number of civil servants will be slightly higher, around 800. The average salary of all the surrounding public health institutions will be at least 200 EUR higher. R. Lingienė told the radio show “Question of the Day” on Tuesday.

The epidemiologist stressed that the workload is much higher during a coronavirus pandemic.

“People don’t just work from Monday to Friday. We start work early in the morning, calling at 7:30 in the morning is normal, like midnight. And it lasts both on weekends and holidays. This has been happening. since early spring, ”said R. Lingienė about the daily work of epidemiologists.

Lingienė - behind the scenes of the fight against coronavirus: the reward of epidemiologists

© DELFI / Andrius Ufartas

R. Lingienė stated that employees are paid for overtime as much as the Labor Code allows. But the professionals themselves sacrifice and work harder because they understand how critical their job is right now.

Delphi recalls that on Tuesday Nausėda asked for next year’s budget to increase funding for the COVID-19 Pandemic Center.

“The main problems are that we still cannot adequately fund the people on the front line: there are no jobs, there are no salaries, good professionals are lost simply because they cannot compete in the market or people are getting tired of huge workloads” . visit the NVSC, said G. Nausėda.

“We need to address this problem not by praying with our tongues, but by actually planning the 2021 budget,” he added.

According to the president, the situation will not be solved with several hundred thousand or one million additional euros, as it will only be used to cover existing debts.

“We estimate that about 4 million would be needed. We need to reach a political agreement on these issues,” said G. Nausėda.



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