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DK DEMANDS HEALTH BONUS TO BE EXTENDED TO PHARMACISTS, SOCIAL WORKERS

 

The opposition Democratic Coalition has called on the government to extend an earlier announced bonus of a 500,000 forints (EUR 1,450) before tax to all health-care employees to pharmacists and social workers. Imre László, the mayor of Budapest’s 11th district, told an online press conference that the government’s original bonus plan would “neglect thousands of people” working under the increased risk of being infected with the novel coronavirus or whose work had been made “extraordinarily difficult” because of the epidemic. László insisted that staff in senior care homes could have been even more exposed to the infection than doctors and nurses, while others working in homes for the disabled and physiotherapists were not included among recipients of the bonus. Miklós Kásler, the human resources minister, said on Friday that some 160,000 health care employees would receive the bonus on July 1.