Giving Different Bonuses to Medical Staff and the Impact on Professional Ethics

Abstract

Granting different bonuses to medical staff, depending on medical specialization, leads to inequities that affect the medical act, with an impact on professional medical ethics. These differentiations were created by regulating and applying the Framework Regulation on the establishment of jobs, staff categories, the concrete size of the increase for working conditions provided in Annex no. II to the Framework Law no. 153/2017 on the remuneration of staff paid from public funds, as well as the conditions for granting it, for the occupational family of budgetary positions "Health and social assistance" - approved by Government Decision no. 153/2018 - according to which the increased bonuses granted to the medical staff creates large income differences between medical specialties, these increases amounting to between 5% and 85%. The differentiated granting of salary increases, depending on the medical specialty, lacks an objective and reasonable justification, and the amplitude of the percentage differences between the increases is not found in other European countries. The study analyzes these legislative aspects and aims to propose measures to eliminate the identified inequities.