Ombudsman dr. Zdenka Cebasek - Travnik urged doctors on Wednesday to rethink their withdrawal of consents to work extra overtime. She noted that the doctors' refusal to work overtime already created circumstances which are potentially dangerous for people's lives and health and violate the human right to health care.

Dr. Cebasek - Travnik believes there is no need for the doctors not to work extra overtime, because the stand-by duty bonuses cuts, which the doctors are protesting against, will not step into force before 1 January 2011.

Negotiations with the government are continuing and could as well come to a conclusion in the coming months - before the cuts will step into force, she noted.

Ombudsman expects that a full scope of health care will be provided for patients, as the state is bound to guarantee this by the Constitution, and the doctors are obligated to provide medical care under their Hippocratic oath.

The country's main oncology hospital, the Ljubljana Onkoloski institut, said today that the situation is not yet "dramatic", but serious problems could occur in a few weeks if the situation remains unchanged.

Too few anesthesiologists are the biggest problem at the Onkoloski institut as well as in other hospitals. The hospital's medical director Janez Zgajnar told the press today that so far no surgeries had been cancelled, as was reported by the media yesterday, but some radiation treatments demanding an anesthesiologist were indeed called off.