The current government, with the help of the media, has succeeded in carrying out a project to completely demonise doctors in the manner of the Nazi demonisation of the Jewish population in pre-war Germany. Most people today do not trust doctors and regard them as greedy capitalists who are more interested in money than in people’s health. Now that they have succeeded with their first project, their “street fighters” have become even more arrogant. They have even started making death threats.
At a recent protest by supporters of the public healthcare service and the court suppliers of medical equipment (also known as nom de guerre, “vascular stentists”), they even threatened doctors with death. One of the banners they carried read: “Death to amphibians. Freedom to the nation.” (A play on the Communist phrase: Death to fascism, freedom to the people.) By amphibians, they are, of course, referring to doctors with concessions who work for the public healthcare system, but who also work privately (as is common in most industries, since it is irrelevant for whom the individual works, as long as the service is done correctly).
This protest was the action of the notorious civic initiative Voice of the People (Glas ljudstva), which carried out a public protest action called “Stop the Amphibians!” claiming that there was a conflict of interest between reducing waiting times in public healthcare and the personal afternoon earnings that long waiting times make possible, and demanding from the government “a clear demarcation between public (read: state) and private healthcare”, which is, of course, grist for the mill of those corrupt healthcare lobbies that have been destroying it for three decades.
So not only have doctors who work in private practices with a concession been covertly labelled as fascists, but they have also been threatened with death. This is the next escalation in the open war between the Golob government and the doctors, and the first time there have been actual death threats.
It is also worth pointing out that the doctors were depicted as frogs in medical capes, which is also Nazi iconography, since Nazi propagandists used frogs to refer to Jewish propagandists.
Outraged reactions
The association Junior Doctors (Mladi zdravniki) responded to the protest, writing on social media: “Death? Death to people who provide medical care to patients in their spare time? The police, please deal with the case in accordance with Article 135 of the Criminal Code. Thank you!”
Young doctor Rok Ravnikar added: “The inciting lies and insults from the street contribute to the escalation of violence against healthcare workers.”
Jelka Godec, Chair of the Slovenian Democratic Party (Slovenska demokratska stranka – SDS) parliamentary group, also responded with a warning. “Remember the calls that read ‘Death to Janšaism?’ The ones who shouted them are the same people who are behind the Death to Amphibians slogans today. Tomorrow, they will have new targets. In light of this, remember Martin Niemoeller‘s poem from 1976. When they came for the others, you were silent, and it ends with the line: ‘Then they came for me – and there was no one left to speak for me’.”
The escalation is the result of Golob’s war with FIDES
The government has been at war with doctors ever since it unilaterally broke its contract with FIDES – the trade union of doctors and dentists, setting a precedent in relations between the government and public sector unions. Knowing that the media is uncompromisingly on its side, the government has made its rhetoric sharper. And since it cannot directly threaten doctors with death, then it is its “street fighters,” led by Jaša Jenull and Dušan Keber, who do so on its behalf.
Doctors warn
Doctors have long warned that something terrible could happen – remember, a patient attacked a nurse in a hospital in Celje and broke the doctor’s nose.
“The pre-election promises of the current coalition to improve the healthcare system have gone unfulfilled, and the situation has deteriorated significantly. Doctors face unregulated working conditions, leading to burnout and mass departures from our country to others or to the private sector,” the doctors said in their latest public letter, adding critically that in the meantime, the government is actively creating a negative public opinion against them, which is eroding patient confidence and jeopardising the success of their treatments.
Trying to destroy the doctors’ initiative
In the last few months, Junior Doctors have advocated for an amendment to the Criminal Code to provide greater security for doctors and healthcare staff, and all the while, there have been persistent problems with the e-Government web portal, where signatures in support of the change were being collected. Signatories continue to encounter obstacles when signing, and the e-Government site repeatedly fails to function. It seems as if someone deliberately wants to prevent the collection of signatures. The Ministry of Digital Transformation, led by Emilija Stojmenova Duh, claims that doctors are “misleading”, even though the Ministry has hired a foreign PR service to lead the fight against doctors.
So, it seems that the situation is getting worse and worse, and it is only a matter of time before a truly tragic incident occurs.
I. K.
