Members of the Association of Private Physicians have gone on a three-day strike over pay and working conditions, transmits MIA.

Through Wednesday, private primary care physicians working with the national Health Insurance Fund are seeing emergency cases only. They will not prescribe medications or give referrals for special care.

The private doctors demand capitation payment be increased and electronic health records be introduced. Their other demands include increasing specialists’ budgets, opening laboratories in rural clinics, and not closing doctors’ offices if they want to continue working after the age of 64.

According to the association’s announcement, the doctors’ strike between Sept. 5 and 7 is being held because these demands had not been met by health authorities.

Last week, Minister of Health Bekim Sali said their “dissatisfaction should be resolved at the negotiating table through specific proposals that will be considered and discussed, and not through boycotting work.”

“We have been discussing this over the past six months,” Minister Sali said. “We cannot change the system in a month or two, or under pressure,” he said.

added that the physicians’ demands were submitted to the government, which was now considering possible changes in public procurement procedures and in the healthcare records management system.

“This takes time. That’s the only thing I asked the primary care physicians, but unfortunately they cannot understand. We will continue our intense efforts related to changes in primary care. Unfortunately, my colleagues will continue their boycott, although the patients are the ones who suffer,” he said.

The health minister said he agreed that referrals should not be printed but issued electronically. However, he said, the state needed to provide “both hardware and software for this, which necessitates public procurement, which requires time.”