The World Federation of Trade Unions, which is the militant voice of more than 92 million workers in 126 countries worldwide, stands on the side of resident doctors in Warsaw, Poland, who recently started a hunger strike and organized protests demanding a salary increase. The doctors are also protesting against inadequate health care funding, shortage of medical staff and conditions in which health care professionals are overworked.

The class-oriented world trade union movement firmly supports public, free and high quality healthcare for all citizens in all countries, combined with doctors’ dignified salary and working conditions so that they can carry out their function the best way possible. The resident doctors’ demands are not “unrealistic”, unrealistic are the policies that downgrade the peoples’ healthcare and oppress the doctors’ rights.

This issue of healthcare is crucial and concerns all workers and popular strata in Poland. The WFTU calls upon all workers in Poland to defend the doctors’ demands and to intensify their struggle for the improvement of their living and working conditions and social rights.

The Secretariat