Nurses' demonstration in Kryvyi Rih

A demonstration by healthcare workers in Kryvyi Rih took place on Saturday 15 July 2023 to demand payment of salary arrears. The demonstration brought together staff from hospitals No. 1 (Metallurgical District), No. 10 (Dovgintsevsky), No. 11 (Pivdenny GOK) and No. 7 (Damansky), including a large proportion of nurses, and began under the walls of the Kryvyi Rih town council. The demonstration then moved on to a part of the town and a road was temporarily blocked. The police present during the demonstration did not intervene.

"Salary", chanted the health workers. One nurse said she received 2,000 hryvnias [€48] in June. She doesn't know how to live on this money.

The authorities in Kryvyi Rih, led by Yuriy Vilkul, have decided to merge the medical establishments in three different districts into a single institution in order to reduce the burden on the town's budget. According to the doctors' union, the employees have been forced to work for the minimum wage, but they have not seen any of this money for the past three months. The managing director, Ihor Kryshtopa, would like to make 300 employees redundant. He has reportedly closed all the hospitals' current accounts, so that the NHSU cannot fully fund the institutions. Ihor Kryshtopa is currently in charge of the first hospital. It seems that he will oversee the merger process. Previously, when he was head of hospital no. 16, employees staged demonstrations to protest against salary arrears. Ihor Kryshtopa is a former member of the Party of Regions [formerly a pro-Russian party], and is now a member of the Pokrovsky district council for the Ukrainian Perspective party.

If hospital employees do not receive their salaries, further demonstrations have been announced.

Statement by a Ukrainian nurse

Today, an unprecedented event took place in our town: a peaceful gathering of healthcare workers! Four hospitals in Kryvyi Rih were represented, but there were also healthcare workers from all over Ukraine!

We can discuss bribes between doctors and the theft of detergents from wards for a long time, with comments with the bots. It's a favourite argument of those who are unhappy with everything.

But the war has changed everything: health workers are no longer afraid! They are organising themselves into groups on Viber [a social network], communicating with lawyers, and communicating with each other by speaking louder than whispering. There are already cases where one hospital is talking to another!

And do you know why a gentleman said today that only nurses and care assistants were at the demonstration? The directors received a recommendation from on high to keep the dissenters in their place. And we know for sure that while the procession was taking place in the ring, they asked for the lists of those present and those absent!

But healthcare workers are also against low pay, and nurses want to be paid on an equal footing - even if their responsibilities are different!

We look forward to Monday! And we're not afraid !