Hungarian junior doctors suspend mass resignations for 3 months

Budapest, December 30 (MTI) - The association of Hungarian junior doctors on Friday decided to suspend for three months its action to resign en masse after agreeing to engage in talks with the government on wages, Magor Papp, the head of the Hungarian Residents Association, told reporters.

Earlier this year over 1,500 junior placed a signed copy of their resignation letter in deposit, ready to be activated in January if talks with the government fail.

Papp said the association would duly consider Prime Minister Viktor Orban s pledge made on Friday morning for a pay rise in 2012 and state secretary for health Miklos Szocska s promise affecting all doctors in Hungary.

Szocska said on Thursday that the government would forward a cash transfer of 27 billion forints (EUR 87m) to state health-care institutions by the end of the year. He said the money could be used towards reducing debt and "making pay changes" in order to maintain jobs at health-care facilities. By paying outstanding bills, hospitals can save on late payment fines and the costs of rescheduling debt, so in future they can spend more on increasing pay, he said.

On Friday the state secretary said that he would begin talks with health-care leaders and unions on how to make the most effective use of more 30.6 billion forints available for the purpose. The amount is composed of 15 billion forints to be collected from a special tax imposed on unhealthy food and 15.6 billion forints envisaged in the New Szechenyi Plan for human resources development.

After talks with the state secretary on Thursday, Papp said that the government s offer could lead to a genuine improvement in 2012, but he declined to elaborate on its details.

Doctors dissatisfied over low pay and tight health budgets started their protest by demanding that the salaries for doctors should be three times the national average, targeting a monthly net 200,000 forints (EUR 642) for junior doctors and 300,000 forints (EUR 964) for specialists.

Papp declined to indicate if figures in the government s offer were comparable to those amounts; he only said the pay rise would be "significant".