The leaders of five umbrella medical organisations said after a meeting with Health Minister Vili Beros on Friday that doctors would hold a protest rally on March 18 as planned, despite the proposals put forward at the meeting.

“We only believe actions, not words. As for the protest, it will go ahead on 18 March in St Mark’s Square”, the seat of the government in Zagreb, the president of the Croatian Medical Chamber, Kresimir Luetic, said at a press conference.

“We warned the minister, or rather we corrected the incorrect information he has presented in public concerning doctors’ pay and ‘slave-holding’ contracts,” Luetic said.

A survey conducted by the five medical organisations was filled out by 5,700 or 41 per cent of public-sector doctors and 97 per cent of them expressed their dissatisfaction with their present work status.

The organisations demand that the job complexity indices for specialists be equalised with those for subspecialists and that those for primary health care doctors be the same as those for hospital doctors. They also demand an increase of indiceses by at least 10% for doctors undergoing specialist training.

They want a law on the work status of doctors to be adopted by the end of the spring session of parliament, the work of doctors at all levels of health care to be aligned with working-hour norms, and the current “slave-holding” specialisation contracts abolished.