December 17, 2020, Чорний Стяг (Black Flag), https://www.facebook.com/blackflagua/posts/1007699079717234

On December 16, 2020, activists from “Black Flag” and from “Popular Action” joined nurses against the social oppression perpetrated by the neoliberal government against public health. In 2020, a real front in the fight against the pandemic opened up to all Ukrainian doctors and health workers, and, unsurprisingly, the main enemy of the descendants of Hippocrates was not the virus, but their own government. Ukrainian. Government bureaucrats and medical oligarchs, continuing the work of their predecessors, are destroying public medicine in favour of private medicine. They are doing it so cynically that soon there will be no more qualified nurses or doctors who respect their work in Ukraine.

Doctors’ salaries remain disproportionate to the risks. It’s hard to imagine, but the average salary of doctors does not reach the average salary in Ukraine!

According to the Ministry of Health, the average salary of a doctor is around 9,000 Ukrainian Hryvnia (around 260 euros), 7,000 Hryvnia (around 203 euros) for nurses and 5,000 Hryvnia (144 euros) for young nurses.

This is why, today, we, anarchists, cannot stay away from the struggle and we support those who defend us all and who need our solidarity! During the action, the nurses expressed their demands:

1. Funding of medicine to the tune of at least 7% of GDP.

2. Increase in wages from 01.01.2021 for medical workers to the level of 23 000 Hryvnia for doctors; 17 000 for nurses and 12 000 for junior medical staff.

3. Guarantee to receive insurance benefits against occupational diseases for health workers suffering from COVID-19 (presumption of link between illness and professional activity).

4. Publication of expenses, income and budgets of medical establishments (open accounting), collective right to choose the management of medical establishments.

5. Launch of a state program to provide housing for medical personnel.

6. Stop the destruction of the Institutions and services for contagious diseases (tuberculosis), for psychiatry and for epidemiology.

7. Transfer of nurses working in schools and preschools to staff of health care establishments of the Ministry of Health.

After the rally, the demonstrators staged a demonstration in the streets of the city.

Solidarity above all!