Coronavirus: state doctors say pay cuts would be an insult to people risking their lives

State doctors said on Saturday that any new pay cuts imposed on healthcare workers would be an insult given what they are enduring during the current pandemic.

The comment came a day after a Supreme Court decision upheld a 2012 ruling for austerity-driven pay cuts to public sector employees. The ruling has set a legal precedent for the government to impose new cuts if it sees fit.

“New cuts to healthcare workers in the state hospitals would not just be a sign of ingratitude but an insult,” the state doctors’ union, Pasyki said on Saturday.

Commenting on the supreme court decision, and a previous statement by the Employers and Industrialists Federation (Oev) suggesting public sector pay cuts, Pasyki said workers in the hospitals were risking their lives and the lives of their families.

“None of them asked for extra money, just equipment,” the union said.

The supreme court’s ruling was welcomed by the government with a sigh of relief as dismissal of the appeal would have cost the state close to a billion euros over four years amid the coronavirus pandemic when all available funds were being diverted to health, social welfare, and support of the flailing economy.

Earlier this month, Oev called for cuts to the public payroll as part of measures to fight the economic fallout of the coronavirus epidemic.

In a letter to the president, Oev chairman Giorgos Petrou emphasised the importance of utilising all available resources immediately to prevent paralysis of the real economy.

“Any hesitation in immediately allocating all necessary resources and adopting the required adjustments could lead the real economy to paralysis and the productive web to decay while rendering the fiscal stimulus ineffective and the blow to the national economy irreversible,” Petrou said.

The Oev chairman suggested that part of the cost of funding the measures should come from a horizontal contribution by all public sector workers who earn over €1,500.

 

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