Warsaw hospital shutting down four wards amid strike

Four wards have been shut down for now at Warsaw’s Children’s Memorial Health Institute, where nurses are staging an ongoing strike, the hospital’s director said on Monday.
Małgorzata Syczewska, the head of the Institute, said that the patients from the four wards have already been transferred to other hospitals.
“It was a tough decision, but it was the only one we could make in this situation,” she added.
It marks the 14th day of an ongoing strike at the Warsaw’s Children’s Memorial Health Institute, one of the country’s foremost paediatric hospitals. The protesting nurses are demanding higher pay and increase in staff numbers.
The hospital authorities claim that the maximum pay rise they can offer is PLN 250 (EUR 67) a month. Nurses have called for twice that amount.
Deputy Health Minister Marek Tombarkiewicz is taking part in the talks held at the hospital.
On Monday morning he said that shutting down of some of the wards would be “a last resort.”
The hospital authorities warn that the longer the strike continues, the more wards are at risk of being closed