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Ukraine runs the risk of being left without doctors and nurses. The Cabinet of Ministers did not find money for the salaries of doctors, most of them save other people’s lives and risk your own for a salary of 5 to 7 thousand hryvnia a month. At the same time, the neighbor Poland began to attract Ukrainians in droves to work in hospitals. They offer salaries between 20 and 30 times higher, help pay rent and provide comprehensive health insurance.
In this situation, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and his chosen cabinet of ministers, headed by Prime Minister Denis Shmygal, dutifully spend billions on the “Euroblaggers” and “FOP” (individual entrepreneurs) wish list, attending rallies in the government quarter throughout the day. Doctors, on the other hand, cannot leave their patients and continue working for meager wages.
Read about what the “servants of the people” policy can drive and how doctors face a choice: live in poverty or leave the country – read the OBOZREVATEL material.
Poland fights for doctors and Ukraine for domestic offshore
The medical systems of all countries were not prepared for a large-scale pandemic. Even during the first blockades, countries began to actively prepare their medical care: buy masks, medical protective equipment, equipment, and expand infectious disease departments. Ukraine, as OBOZREVATEL already wrote, thanks to former Prime Minister Oleksiy Honcharuk, failed in this preparation.
Denis Shmygal took over from Honcharuk. His government, despite requests from Health Minister Maxim Stepanov, did not find the money to significantly increase doctors’ salaries.
There is a shortage of medical personnel across Europe. All countries are struggling to change specialists. From Poland, doctors and nurses have traditionally emigrated to Germany, where salaries were several times higher. And to save the situation, during a pandemic, the Poles decided to raise salaries: if before a novice doctor could count on fifteen hundred euros, now … earn from three thousand euros.
How Poland attracts Ukrainian doctors:
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wages were raised to the level of German;
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Ukrainian doctors began to accept without confirmation of the diploma;
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Recruitment agencies help doctors complete all the paperwork and learn the language.
They also pay extra for night shifts. For one of those shifts, they can pay from € 100 to € 700, OBOZREVATEL was told at one of the recruitment agencies. Really a doctor in Poland can earn more in one night than a doctor in Ukraine in a month.
Businesses in Ukraine are hot on the heels of doctors, says infectious disease doctor Inna Andrusovich. Recruiters offer salaries 10 times higher than those received by doctors now. Furthermore, according to them, a hospital in Poland will pay 50% of the rental price.
“I can say it myself two of my colleagues immediately went to Poland… The recruits are hot on the heels of all the doctors. Even if our salaries rise to 23 thousand, in Poland doctors have created completely different conditions. They all have health insurance, they are sure that if they get sick they won’t have to spend everything they earn on their own treatment, “says Andrusovich.
Infectionists, the doctor adds, receive a fee of about 5000 UAH. At the time of a pandemic, with all the additional payments, you can count on 12 thousand UAH. “But this is only for the duration of the coronavirus. And then we will keep the same 5 thousand hryvnia,” the doctor complained.
Maxim Stepanov proposed to increase the salaries of doctors to an average of 23 thousand hryvnyas. But the Cabinet did not agree with this. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy interferes in the decisions of the executive and legislative branches, but only when it comes to FOP, Euroblyhers. But no one is going to fix the doctors’ problems.
After a series of protests by “euroblackers”, rallies of “individual entrepreneurs”, special conditions were introduced for them, the introduction of already adopted rules was postponed, they were allowed not to pay taxes and to work in the shadows. Doctors, who cannot physically leave their patients and go to rallies, turned out to be the most unprotected.
Ukraine risks running out of doctors
The search for doctors continues, but in the coming months the situation may get worse, says Vasily Voskoboynik, director of the Ukrainian Business Association for International Employment to OBOZREVATEL. If the workers go to Poland to earn money and return, the doctors take their families with them and emigrate forever.
“Poland took an unprecedented step,” explains the expert. Doctors’ salaries were raised to the level of Germans, while foreigners were hired without confirmation (nostrification) of diplomas.
“We can simply run out of medical workers in one day. Poland canceled the nostrification of the diploma. That is, it is not necessary to confirm the diploma of our medical university. Any doctor with his diploma can go to Poland for a salary many times, tens of times more, “Maxim Stepanov warned a few weeks ago.
To increase the salaries of doctors, the budget for medicines had to be increased from 159 billion to 296 billion UAH. This would be enough not only to increase salaries, but also to fund all medical programs. In comparison, the cost of repaying the loans in 2021 will amount to 439.3 billion UAH.
Perhaps, in order for the Ukrainian authorities to think about the doctors, they will have to leave the hospitals for at least a few hours and stand in front of the building of the President’s Office. As practice shows, President Zelensky only pays attention to the problems of the protesters.
