Poland will have to raise taxes if doctors demand more than PLN 6 bln in pay rises – Deputy PM

Poland's state budget subsidy of PLN 6 bln for the healthcare sector is the maximum amount possible without raising taxes, Polish Deputy Prime Minister Przemyslaw Gosiewski said on public radio Thursday.

"If we were to give more [than PLN 6 bln], then we would have to increase taxes because for the budget this is the maximum amount," Gosiewski said on the Sygnaly Dnia morning program.

The government is proposing to increase health sector spending in 2008 by PLN 6 bln to finance higher wages, as demanded by medical professionals who organized street protests in June. According to Gosiewski, if this is not accepted and demands for a further increase continue, then a referendum will have to be held on hiking tax rates.

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Poland's National Union of Doctors (OZZL) announced that it wants a three-year collective agreement to be signed between trade unions and the government determining the minimum wage for medical professionals before it can encourage activists to end a sit-in that started in mid-June in front of the prime minister's chancellery. Four nurses who had occupied the prime minister's chancellery for more than a week, left yesterday following talks with Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski.
Source:gielda.wp.pl