Kyrgyzstan raises issue of protecting healthcare workers in Mongolia
An international conference «Occupational Safety of Healthcare Workers as One of the Key Areas of Trade Union Activity» is being held in Sukhbaatar, Mongolia.
Kaarmanbek Baidavletov, chairman of the Kyrgyzstan’s Healthcare Workers’ Trade Union, is taking part in the conference. He delivered a report «Occupational Safety of Healthcare Workers: New Challenges for Trade Unions.»
According to him, alongside traditional occupational risks, aggression, physical violence and a lack of legal protection are becoming increasingly serious threats to healthcare workers.
«The main threat to the health and lives of healthcare workers in the workplace is no longer limited to biological or chemical factors. Aggression, physical violence and a lack of legal protection while performing official duties have become major threats,» the Trade Union Chairman stressed.
He noted that tougher penalties for unlawful acts against healthcare workers should be accompanied by effective preventive measures.
«The law works after the fact — when a doctor has already suffered an injury or psychological trauma. We need not just a punitive system, but a comprehensive environment for preventing and immediately stopping risks,» Kaarmanbek Baidavletov said.
In Kyrgyzstan, unlawful acts against medical personnel are punishable by fines of up to 100,000 soms and imprisonment for up to eight years.
At the same time, the Healthcare Workers’ Trade Union, together with the Ministry of Health, is implementing practical measures to strengthen the protection of medical workers. These include registering cases of violence, installing video surveillance and panic buttons, developing protocols for responding to threats, and requiring medical facility managers to respond to incidents of aggression.
During the conference, the Kyrgyz side also proposed developing an agreement on the mutual protection of healthcare trade union members from Central Asian countries.
The proposed document would provide legal and advisory support to healthcare workers during business trips, training programs, internships, conferences and other professional events.
«Uniting our resources, we can create a system in which a healthcare worker in another Central Asian country will know that, if a problem arises, they will not be left to deal with it alone,» Kaarmanbek Baidavletov said.
Participants of the international conference exchanged experience and discussed current challenges in occupational safety, emphasizing the need to further strengthen international trade union cooperation to ensure safe working conditions and reliable protection of healthcare workers’ rights.
