Matovic: Health Professionals Who'll Be at Mass Testing Both Days to Get €500

Bratislava, October 29 (TASR) – Health professionals who spend both days of the national testing for SARS-CoV-2 at testing sites this coming weekend will be given extraordinary payments of €500, Prime Minister Igor Matovic (OLaNO) announced at a press conference on Thursday.

Matovic noted that it was his personal decision, but he believes that he’ll also push it through in the four-party governing coalition (OLaNO, We Are Family, Freedom and Solidarity and For the People).

The Prime Minister pointed out that two health professionals should be stationed at a single testing site. If 1,000 tests are administered and no COVID-19 cases detected, the professionals will earn €700 each. “€100 for one day, €100 for another and, plus, the extraordinary bonus of €500,” said Matovic. The number of positive cases will factor into the remuneration and if in some region there are 4 percent of positive cases, the health personnel could earn €1,100 each over the weekend.

“At no other point in history has the state ever paid such motivating sums to employees working for it. On the other hand, at no point in history have the employees put so much at risk and never faced such an intense recalcitrance from people,” noted Matovic. He urged the people not to envy the health professionals their bonuses because the personnel will be saving lives.

The bonuses are likely to be paid in December.

According to Matovic, once Slovak Doctors’ Chamber President Marian Kollar stated that the novel coronavirus is just a flu and renounced the mass testing, scores of health professionals deleted themselves from the mass testing database. Matovic is saddened that representatives of other political parties and President Zuzana Caputova didn’t stand by his side at the press conference and haven’t voiced support for the mass testing.