UNI Global Union affiliate, the Mongolian Health Workers Union, won concessions from the government to better compensate the health care sector workers for their important contribution during the pandemic.
Ariunaa Kharkhuu, President of MHWU, was pleased to report that with the help of determined members, the union’s campaign succeeded in moving the government to allocate a one-time compensation of 45 billion Mongolian Tugrik (USD 15.7 million) to 34,000 doctors and employees in the healthcare sector.
It also led to establishing a working group comprising the relevant government ministries and the Mongolian Health Workers’ Union to improve medical workers’ salary levels.
The government also promised to work with the Parliament to strengthen the legal framework to enable better health and life insurance coverage of all employees.
With a population of 3.3 million, Mongolia counts on 56,000 health workers and professionals to keep its health services running amidst the pandemic over the past one and a half years.
To date, the country has nearly 150,000 people who contracted Covid-19. This figure includes 3,000 health workers, which strained human resources and significantly increased the workload in hospitals and clinics.
President Ariunaa Kharkhuu shared that despite the health and medical workers’ essential role in the health crisis, government reforms of the medical sector in 2021 have exacerbated their working conditions.
MHWU President, Ariunaa Kharkhuu
She said, “The government this year changed the funding structure of hospitals. Now they are being funded based on performance. As a result, many health workers found their salaries are not paid on time. This is a violation of labour rights.”
The MHWU decided to launch a campaign in July with three key goals to redress the injustice:
- Double the salaries of medical employees;
- Compensation medical employees working in COVID hot spots;
- Cover the health and life insurance of doctors and other employees.
UNI Asia and Pacific Regional Secretary Rajendra Acharya congratulated the MHWU for the very commendable results, and he said, “Health and medical workers can look forward to better social protection and compensation thanks to the union. I am also happy that a social dialogue platform has been created with the involvement of the union and I hope that it will be sustained.”
