South Ossetia broke its promise to raise nurses' pay
The authorities in South Ossetia have failed to deliver on their promise to raise nurses' pay, a demand that led to a strike at the end of July.
Around 100 nurses took part, addressing their demands directly to president Alan Gagloev. Nurses in South Ossetia earn half as much as hospital assistants – a gap that opened after assistants' salaries were raised by 60%, while nurses received only a 25% increase. The protest was fuelled by the fact that they had originally been promised a 40% rise.
Another grievance was the acute shortage of medicines, dressings and even basic conditions for treating patients.
Alan Gagloev came to meet the protesters, but the talks went nowhere. According to participants, the president, in an aggressive mood, insulted them before calling a few nurses for a private conversation and promising to resolve the pay issue within a week.
That deadline has long passed, yet the problem remains. Instead, labour and social affairs minister Oleg Gagloev shifted the responsibility to Russia. He cited an agreement under which South Ossetia pledged to gradually raise public-sector salaries, including for healthcare workers, to the level in North Ossetia. But it is clear the authorities have been unable to do so. How this acknowledgment was supposed to absolve them of responsibility or help solve the problem is unclear.
Anonymous sources in Tskhinvali told JAMnews that the president had involved the security services to put pressure on the nurses – prosecutors allegedly used threats and blackmail to extract 'guarantees not to destabilise the situation'.
The protesters, however, found a more willing audience among MPs from the opposition United Ossetia faction. Or at least they tried to listen, until pro-government lawmakers intervened. The dispute has now deepened not only between healthcare workers and the government, but also within parliament. After pro-presidential parties complained that United Ossetia was receiving 'excess' public funds, a court froze the opposition's accounts, curbing its political activity.
Toponyms, terminology, views and opinions expressed by the author are theirs alone and do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of JAMnews or any employees thereof. JAMnews reserves the right to delete comments it considers to be offensive, inflammatory, threatening or otherwise unacceptable.
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