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SANITAS threatens protests and a general strike if the new Government does not address healthcare demands

Cristiana Dida

26 October 2026, 12:28

Current Affairs

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The SANITAS Federation is threatening to resume protests and a general strike if the new Government does not swiftly address problems in the healthcare system. Union members are calling for an urgent budget adjustment to fund hospitals, the unblocking of hiring and the resumption of negotiations on a new pay law.

Initial contacts with the Government have already been established, and SANITAS representatives are expected to meet with the prime minister and the health minister. Doctor Toni Popescu, president of the federation’s Doctors’ Division, said the union hopes the current Government will be more receptive than the previous one and address both pay-related issues and the situation concerning on-call duties, shifts and social assistance.

Funding for healthcare facilities and ambulance services is an urgent matter. SANITAS maintains that the budget adjustment must be adopted as soon as possible, as hospitals and emergency services are already facing operational difficulties. Union members consider the measure to have “zero-degree” urgency.

Resuming negotiations on the pay law remains the main stake. Toni Popescu says there are solutions for correcting the pay scales without excessive costs to the budget and recalls that SANITAS has participated in drafting pay legislation since 1990. The union maintains that the new legislation was one of the causes of the protests and the largest strike in Romanian hospitals.

Context: ahead of the threat to resume protests, SANITAS suspended the strike after an amendment and then continued to apply pressure over the pay law

Previously, the SANITAS Federation announced the suspension of the general strike launched on July 28, in order to “give politicians a chance” to resume negotiations on a new pay law. During the same period, the Chamber of Deputies approved an amendment to the Health Law that allowed vacant positions to be unblocked within the limits of the approved budget, while the adoption of the pay law for personnel paid from public funds was postponed.

After this point, the union resumed its warnings and protests: on the second day of the open-ended strike, SANITAS stated that the negotiations had not led to changes deemed necessary to the draft pay law. Subsequently, the Federation’s president, Iulian Pope, said that the strike would continue “in principle” following discussions with the Ministry of Health, because there had been no guarantees and several aspects remained “under analysis”.

At the same time, before this cycle of demands, SANITAS warned that the Health and Social Assistance systems risked being left without money for salaries, medicines, and fuel, and called for an emergency budget revision, citing monthly funding needs as well as the needs of investments already under way.