Hundreds of nurses and other healthcare workers staged a protest rally dubbed The Eleventh Hour on Wednesday outside the Zagreb University Hospital to warn of their difficult working conditions, demanding wage increase and a new collective agreement.

Protesters walked out for half an hour and staged the protest rally in the hospital courtyard in a show of support for the demands that the nurses’ union presented to the government as part of the negotiations for a new collective agreement.

“It’s high time that our money is no longer spent on some sort of Agrokor, private companies and that there is never enough money for anyone in the health sector,” the chief steward of the nurses’ union at the hospital, Gordana Miskulin, said addressing the protesters.

Some doctors showed their support for the nurses’ demands even though their union is legally prevented from participating in organised protests. One physician said that it was time that people working in the health sector were taken seriously due to their inappropriate working conditions.

The work of nurses in hospitals is exceptionally difficult. Nurses tend to about 30 patients each and earn an extra HRK 40 to 50 a day for such working conditions. It’s not all about the money but the fact that one or two nurses cannot handle so many patients. In the EU five to six nurses are in charge of that number of patients, the doctor Boris Radic said.

The wage negotiation will continue on Friday and unions expect the government to then present a proposal to increase wages.

During the negotiations last week the union demanded supplements on working conditions of 10% to 20% as well as a 7% wage increase that was initialled by Health Minister Milan Kujundzic in a previous collective agreement which the government later did not endorse.

Similar protest rallies were held in Dubrovnik and Split on Wednesday.