On April 2, Minister of Health Yelzhan Birtanov replied on his official Facebook page to the workers of COVID-19 medical isolation center in Nur-Sultan, who complained about poor working conditions and low salaries in an interview to Holanews.kz a day earlier.
Five nurses – Zhanar Mukhamedzhanova, Tamara Amirbekova, Tatyana Borisovna, Gulnara Khairina and Aiman Oralbayeva — said they didn’t see the money that officials claimed were allocated to increase the salaries of doctors and medical workers treating infected people. According to Minister of Information and Social Development Dauren Abayev, monthly pay raise for 3 284 high-risk specialists should be no less than 850 000 tenge.
However, Zhanar Mukhamedzhanova says being a high-risk group specialist and having worked 312 hours at the infectious in-patient facility of the antitubercular clinic, she only got 287 000 tenge. Nurses stress they have been working “round the clock” to care for coronavirus patients, very often being infected themselves, and no conditions have been provided so far.
“We sleep on the couches. There are 17 patients in one hospital ward. Small amounts of food are available. There’s no support whatsoever. We were promised to get psychological aid. We are wearing isolation gowns more than two-three days in a row, although it’s for single use only. The only equipment items available in abundance are gloves and masks,” they complain.
Nurses say they have been risking their lives every day since the first patient was registered, but it seems the government is not interested in stimulating medical workers. “We are not afraid of being fired anymore. The way we are being treated now is not fair,” they note.
In his response Minister Birtanov said it was painful to read the interview but he understands the nurses’ dissatisfaction. He said a special commission will be created to deal with the incident within the shortest possible time.
Yelzhan Birtanov stressed the allocated funds have been used for different purposes: to purchase personal protective equipment, medicines, medical devices, diagnostic testing kits, the evacuation of Kazakh citizens from coronavirus-hit areas, to support medical workers and the country’s economy in the challenging period.
“As for financial assistance to our doctors, I can say for sure that on the instruction of the President of our country a monthly raise will be set for the medical workers involved in anti-epidemic measures in the coming days”, he said. The government has defined three risk groups so far, defining specific salary increase for each one of them (850 000, 425 000 and 212 500 tenge respectively).
An additional order will be issued setting the details for the mechanism of how the payments will be made and the lists of medical staff formed. In his response Yelzhan Birtanov promised all the decisions will be transparent and open, regional commissions will include representatives of public and labour union organizations, the Nur Otan party, as well as local executive bodies — health departments and social protection departments. The first payments are to be made by April 5.
