About 1,000 nurses and non-medical staff from throughout Croatia gathered in Zrinjevac Park in central Zagreb on Thursday to demand higher pay and better working conditions, saying they could not wait until next year for their status to change.

“New pay indices and pay grades will enter into force as late as February 2024, we cannot wait until then,” Stjepan Topolnjak, leader of the Independent Union of Health and Welfare Workers, told the crowd.

He warned that cleaners and auxiliary workers worked for the minimum wage, while the pay of nurses with secondary school qualifications was only €50 higher than the minimum wage.

“Nurses in primary health care are paid €700 a month, and those in hospitals €900 a month. Is that adequate pay for the work they do?” Topolnjak said to shouts from the protesters, who were carrying placards saying “Give us back our rights and our dignity” and “Nurses deserve more”.

The leader of the Nurses’ Union, Brankica Grguric, said that the way the government was treating them was shameful and that they did not need Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic, who was refusing to meet with them.

“The healthcare system does not need ministers, but it does need workers, cooks, midwives, nurses and physiotherapists,” Grguric said.

The president of the Croatian Chamber of Nurses, Mario Gazic, also came to express his support to the demonstrators, saying that this should be only the beginning of their actions.

The head of the Federation of Autonomous Trade Unions, Mladen Novosel, said that nurses and other staff deserved the same respect the prime minister and the health minister had accorded to doctors. “They put them in a more favourable position than you,” he told the crowd.

The leader of the Croatian Independent Unions, Kresimir Sever, warned that the Croatian healthcare system was ill and the cure was in the hands of the prime minister and the health minister. “You were forced out into the streets because you are not being treated in the same way. One group is received for talks, while the other is invited to collective bargaining.”

Anica Prasnjak from the Nursing Union said they were not giving up. She said that preparations for “a serious strike” would begin on 25 May if the government ignored their demands.