Non-emergency ambulance drivers will end their strike on Friday following Health Minister Vili Beros' promise that a regulation would be adopted to define their status, increase their pay coefficient and equalize their pay throughout the country, unionists said on Thursday.

“Agreement has been reached, the strike will be ended and tomorrow non-emergency ambulance drivers will resume working,” shop steward Vladimir Markus said after a meeting at the Health Ministry.

He noted that the job of non-emergency ambulance drivers would no longer be defined as that of a light-duty vehicle driver.

“Our job will be classified as non-emergency ambulance driver with an appropriate  coefficient, 0.90,” Markus said.

The final deadline for the adoption of the new regulation and the new method of calculating wages is two months, otherwise unions will again organize a strike, Markus said, noting that in that event, unlike this week’s strike, none of the non-emergency ambulance drivers would work.

The current pay coefficient of non-emergency ambulance drivers is 0.776 and their new pay coefficient of 0.90 is lower than that of ambulance drivers (0.95%) because ambulance drivers’ job is more complex.

Markus noted also that next year a new branch collective agreement would be signed to negotiate additional bonuses for nurses working with non-emergency ambulance drivers.