Striking healthcare workers and Okypy at loggerheads over pay (Update 2)

By Andria Kades and Iole Damaskinos

Healthcare workers in public hospitals went on a nationwide strike on Wednesday, leaving skeleton staff to handle caseloads amid demands for equal pay.

Health Minister Popi Kanari said she was saddened over the impact this was having on patients but stressed “our efforts as a ministry were, and are, to find a compromise solution that satisfies both sides.”

The crux of the disagreement concerns around 1,000 out of a total of around 7,500 health service employees and centres on the fact that state health services organisation (Okypy) in its trajectory to become self-sustaining has placed new hires on a different pay scale than old health workers who were classed as public servants and remain as such.

Unions said measures would continue – and even escalate – if Okypy did not “positively respond” to the demands.

Speaking outside Limassol general hospital during the eight-hour strike, head of Pasyki state doctors’ union Sotiris Koumas urged Okypy and the health minister “to hear the message that employees cannot pay the price of the Okypy model”.

Meanwhile, Okypy spokesman Chalalambos Charilaou speaking on state radio said the unions’ demands were not legally practicable.

“Accepting the unions proposal constitutes an illegality,” Charilaou said, adding that “Okypy has no issue with collective agreements” but that new hires’ rights were already protected.

“The [new] employees’ rights are safeguarded and outlined in the law, not by collective agreement, something which is unique,” Charilaou said.

The employers and industrialists federation (OEV) condemned the strike, saying every possible means for a peaceful resolution should have been exhausted, as this concerns essential services with people’s lives on the line.

Okypy has also previously cited financial feasibility and the drive to improve public hospital competitiveness, efficiency and performance-based pay, as factors in its handling of renumeration.

The strike began at 7am until 3pm and was organised by unions Sek, Peo, Deok, Pasydy, Pasyki and Pasyno, who held placards reading “We want job security and perspectives”, “Stop the mockery”, “We want a collective labour contract.”

“We will not accept the creation of two tiers of employees doing the same job,” head of Peo union, Sotiroulla Charalambous said, speaking from the Nicosia general hospital to state broadcaster CyBC.

The union head lambasted the organisation’s stance saying that it created a situation where employees were opting to leave the public hospitals as pay conditions are unfavourable. She further charged that its incapacity to retain staff would result in severe deficits for the state services.

“We remain dissatisfied with Okypy’s refusal to do away with a two-tier system for employees. If you don’t offer prospects to your employees you will not have prospects as an organisation,” Charalambous stated.

“This type of career uncertainty is what creates a transient workforce where people leave as soon as they find better prospects, and it’s already happening,” the union head said.

Charalambous also took to task Okypy’s financial concerns and suggested that the state may need to step in to offer longer-term support. The state could not “wash its hands” of the responsibility for public hospitals, the union head said, which are the “pilots” of the public health system.

Spokesman for the nursing union Pasyno, Theodoros Petelis highlighted a collective agreement was necessary so staff can feel job security and work properly, calling on Okypy to specify why pay raises had not been implemented for three years.

He added the current model had failed and the government had to make a decision, whether it be that the state needs to take its responsibilities for the healthcare sector, or if Okypy can no longer handle it, the government should take over.

On Tuesday the unions rejected a new proposal from Okypy after a failed eleventh-hour meeting to prevent the strike.

Union spokesman Stratis Matheou called the proposal “reheated food” and said they were awaiting a reconsideration by the relevant authorities.

Okypy announced that appointments and surgery were postponed and rescheduled, while a skeleton staff was operating the hospitals.