Unions Say 5,000 Doctors Quit Over Pay

A Polish doctors’ strike for higher wages forced hospitals to move patients to facilities with enough medical staff as about 5,000 physicians have quit jobs.

About 40 seriously ill people were evacuated during the weekend from a hospital in southern Poland to another hospital, whose doctors weren’t on strike, Polish Radio reported Monday.

The national radio quoted the Polish Doctors’ Union as saying some 5,000 physicians have resigned from state-run hospitals after talks with management failed.

About 300 out of Poland’s 800 hospitals and clinics have been affected by strikes that started in mid-2006 when doctors asked for an immediate 30-percent pay increase and another 100 percent increase in 2007. Doctors demanded a monthly salary of $1,800, which would be double of Poland’s national average monthly pay of $900.

Konstanty Radziwill, head of the Polish Doctors’ Council said the shortage of doctors and medics had already been on the rise as physicians left Poland for Western countries in search for better-paying jobs or were joining Polish privately owned clinics.