Latvia, Legislation, Markets and Companies, Medicine, Strike

While the strike had made the government "to start thinking about what to do" about the situation in health care and a new law on health care financing is being drafted, the medics are interested in the results, he said. "We are interested in the increase of financing that must be clearly defined in the law to stop medics from drifting to other jobs with much higher pay or leaving the country altogether," Kalejs said.

"In that case we would be able to say that it [the strike] has been effective. So far it is not because the official pay level in our health care is still below the pre-crisis level," he said.

Meanwhile Sarmite Veide, the head of the Latvian Association of Family Physicians, told LNT that such forms of protest were effective because they created inconveniences for both patients and the government. "I think that sooner or later they [politicians] would grasp the situation and will be forced to change things," she said.

When asked whether the family physicians were still willing to make a compromise with the government, Veide said they would gladly meet with the prime minister but he had said there would be no more meetings. She stressed that the association had already softened most of its demands.

As reported, over 600 family physicians in Latvia went on a strike at noon on July 3, ceasing to provide any government-funded health care services to their patients until an agreement is reached with the Latvian government on the demands by the family physicians, including the increase of the capitation. As of July 18, the protest form was altered and now family physicians accept no more than 20 patients a day. The protest in this form is to continue until October 1.