From July 1, Belarus canceled COVID-19 related allowances (additional payments) for doctors and nurses working with COVID-19 positive patients, but introduced new permanent bonuses, which are tied to a percentage of the salary, depending on the complexity and intensity of the doctor’s work.
The salaries of doctors with new bonuses introduced instead of COVID-19 payments are less than what they had during the pandemic, but more than before the start of the pandemic, reported the press service of the Ministry of Health of Belarus.
The Ministry of Health explained that all “COVID-19” related money from the budget will be used to further increase the wages of ALL medical workers, not SOME. Although the COVID-19 payments have been canceled, now all categories of healthcare workers will receive new bonuses.
Why this change?
The Ministry of Health explained that only about 40% of the country’s health workers were receiving “COVID-19” payments, while the remaining 60% of health workers did not work with COVID-19 patients and were not getting the added salary bonus (payment). Since mid-spring of 2022, the situation with COVID-19 stabilized in the country and only 7% of health workers were getting the extra payments for working in high risk zones with COVID-19 patients.
The Ministry of Health noted that after the introduction of new payments, which are applicable to all doctors, the salary of those who did not work with COVID-19 patients has substantially increased. For example, general practitioners and ambulance doctors got an increase by 445-541 rubles, internal medicine doctors, surgeons, and pediatricians working in hospitals – the salary increased by 280-340 rubles.
“Now the Ministry of Health is monitoring salaries of doctors of all medical specialties. A strict requirement is that all promised new payments must be paid out and, at the same time, all previous payments and bonuses must be preserved,” noted the Ministry.
One of the reasons to increase the doctor’s salary in the country, supposedly, is to prevent a further brain drain of doctors leaving to work in other countries.
Source: Ministry of Healthcare of Belarus
