The Board of the Latvian Health and Social Care Workers’ Trade Union (LVSADA) will call on the Ministry of Health (MoH) to enter negotiations, demanding a 15% salary increase in 2026 for all professional qualification groups in the healthcare sector, the union announced.
LVSADA states that this move follows the government’s failure to ensure the sector’s competitiveness, as well as forecasts by the Ministry of Finance (MoF) predicting an overall wage increase in the national economy.
The union says that its target figure is based on the MoF forecast, which anticipates a 13.5% average wage growth in Latvia over two years—from 2025 to 2026.
The decision follows discussions with Mārcis Pļaviņš, Vice President of the Latvian Medical Association; Signe Rinkule, head of the Union of Professional Organizations of Latvian Medical Personnel; and Jeļgēņijs Kalējs, Chairman of the Latvian Hospital Association.
Participants unanimously agreed that the gap between the sector’s financial needs and the €652 million allocation planned in the government’s 2026 budget seriously endangers the quality and accessibility of healthcare services.
They also recalled that during a Strategic Council for the Health Sector meeting on the 3rd of July, it was unanimously recognized that
substantial additional funding is needed in 2026 for the MoH to fulfill its core functions—estimated at €652 million.
The union also stressed that it has repeatedly warned of serious national development risks due to the shortage of human resources in healthcare. Yet, neither the 2025 nor the 2026 budgets include plans to raise salaries in the sector, which has already lost competitiveness, now down to 2020 levels.
LVSADA argues that the current situation threatens the retention of specialists in the public healthcare sector and may lead to an even faster exodus of workers.
At the end of the discussion, the union and its partners agreed to continue internal discussions within their respective organizations on possible actions.
As previously reported,
the government has decided to prioritize defense and security in next year’s budget,
while rejecting other sectoral requests for increased funding. The medical trade union has repeatedly stated that such a decision contradicts the public’s right to accessible and quality healthcare, and ignores the latest recommendations from the European Commission to Latvia.
During the Strategic Council meeting, the Ministry of Health confirmed that the funding gap for critical needs in 2026 stands at €652 million. According to the union, the council concluded that this shortfall will inevitably worsen healthcare services for the population, and therefore substantial additional funding is required.
In addition, the Latvian Free Trade Union Confederation has submitted a letter to the Ministry of Finance and the State Chancellery, demanding that education, healthcare, and demographics remain national priorities, despite the government’s instruction for ministries and central institutions not to submit proposals for priority measures in the next year’s state budget.
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