Young Polish doctors began a hunger strike over pay in Warsaw on Monday.

Resident doctors complain they find it hard to make ends meet on their salaries.

They doctors are also protesting at what they say is inadequate health care funding, a shortage of medical staff and at conditions in which health care professionals are overworked.

But Health Minister Konstanty Radziwiłł said the doctors’ pay expectations were “unrealistic”.

“It is important to say this clearly: expectations of double the average national wage for young doctors are simply unrealistic,” Radziwiłł told a press conference.

He added such wage demands were “unrealistic both in the health service itself and in... a country which is, well, not the wealthiest country in the world."

(pk)

Source: PAP