Medical Federation “Podkrepa” seeks cancellation or changes to the obligatory green certficates for medical professionals

The Medical Federation „Podkrepa“ urges the caretaker Minister of Health to carefully analyse the order that obliges all health professionals to obtain “green certificates” for work and to consider the possibility to cancel or revise it, the union‘s official stance says.

„In case you do not find grounds for it in the statements above, we demand that you issue clear and specific guidelines for the implementation of the anti-epidemic measure in question before the order enters in effect, taking our arguments into consideration.” the Medical Federation adds.

Here are the arguments they present to the caretaker Health Minister:

According to point I.29 from your Order RD-01 856 dated 19.10.2021 the requirement that "the employers of medical facilities, complex oncological centres, dialysis centres, hospices, and nursing homes allow access to work only to personnel with a valid certificate of vaccination, recovery or testing by virtue of Order № RD 01-733 dated 27.01.2021” is implemented as an anti-epidemic measure.

On the one hand, the cited wording caused employers to take actions that drastically infringe the guaranteed constitutional right of labour, trampling over many regulations of the labour legislation. Immediately after the Order was isssued, dozens of signals were redeived from the union members of the Medical Federation „Podkrepa“ that work in medical institutions.

In accordance with the provided information they were generally informed that as of October 21, 2021, they will not be granted access to work if they do not meet the quoted requirement, and in such case this will be considered as "absenteeism” or they will have to apply for using their unpaid leave.

Your Order may lead to exclusion from work, in which case the employers could apply the powers, granted to them with Article 128c of the Labour Code, and if there is suspension from work for certain workers and personnel, they will owe payment of the gross wage on the basis of Article 267a of the Labour Code. The workers and personnel can not be suspended from work on a different legal basis in effect, as temporary suspension from work is provided only in the cases referred to in Article 199 of the Labour Code, i.e. when the worker „shows up in a condition that does not allow them to fulfill his/her work duties, uses alcohol or other narcotics during working hours”. There are no legal provisions by which the presence of the health condition, specified by you, is a condition for the exercise of any profession or occupation in the Republic of Bulgaria.

In other words, depriving workers or personnel of the opportunity to work in the cases when they show up during the established working hours willing to fulfill their duties, cannot, in any way, be bound to negative consequences for them, expressed in non-payment of their wage, much less in the ascertainment of „absenteeism“, as far as it is a ground for disciplinary dismissal in accordance with Article 190 of the Labour Code.

On the other hand, in view of the indicative summarised data for the vaccination status of the workers in hospital institutions, the exclusion from work under the conditions set out in point I.29 of your Order № RD 01-856 dated 19.10.2021, poses an extremely serious risk that the hospital institutions suffer from objective and practical impossibility of performing their functions, while the workers and personnel that were granted access are overworked and on of that all happening against the general backdrop of insufficient health specialists.

In this regard, it should be taken into account, that even the stimulating effect of the requirement aimed at a rise in the number of vaccinated people, from a procedural point of view, would be attainable after the completion of a full vaccination cycle, which is objectively related to a technological time period, that elapses long after you Order enters into effect.