Ministry of Health

This was confirmed to BNS on Friday by Svajūnė Muralytė, the temporary head of the laboratory and head of the Virological Research Sub-section.

According to her, RMBalčienė was reinstated to her position at the institution on February 8 by the decision of the Labor Disputes Commission, following the conclusion of a settlement agreement.

“There was an agreement between the parties that she would be reinstated,” said S. Muralytė.

At the end of January, S. Muralytė replaced Elena Lubienė. The latter was appointed as temporary director in November, when Danas Bakša, who lost the lawsuit for illegal dismissal in the court of second instance, was dismissed from his position once more.

RMBalčienė was dismissed from the position of deputy director when she signed a decision on the additional services of a lawyer – she later represented the institution in litigation with D. Bakša for illegal dismissal.

Deputy director D. Bakša called the decision to remove her from her duties during an internal investigation last August as revenge.

“Everything was obvious and clear there (…), it was simply a search for reasons to take revenge, to get rid of it.” (…) The Labor Disputes Commission, following examining it, saw that we should actually sign a settlement agreement here. We signed a peace agreement with certain compromise conditions and I was returned to my former position,” RMBalčienė told BNS on Friday.

At the end of January, the trade union of NVSPL employees feared the return of RMBalčienė to her former position. In the letter of the staff of the institution, she is accused of psychological violence and unethical behavior.

For her part, RMBalčienė said that there are no facts or evidence of such accusations.

“There is a group of workers who speak for everyone and are angry. I can also say a lot, accused of theft. There is no fact, there is no evidence, and I have never been accused of this,” she said.

The head of the trade union, Renatas Liberis, has indicated to BNS that it has 29 employees out of approximately 300 throughout Lithuania.

According to RMBAlčienė, members of the NVSPL trade union create a “bad atmosphere” in the institution, engage in politics instead of doing their direct work.

When asked how they intend to organize further work in the presence of tensions in the institution, RMBalčienė said that “everything is getting back on track”.

“Actually, the atmosphere is now better, because before there were some people who did not reckon with anyone, terrorized some employees,” she said.

The press representative of the Ministry of Health (SAM) Tomas Bagdonas stated in a comment to BNS that the reinstatement of RMBalčienė is considered an internal process of the institution.

“This is the responsibility of the head of the institution – when making decisions regarding her deputies, she takes responsibility for them,” asserted T.Bagdon.

At the meeting of Health Protection Minister Arūnas Dulkis with representatives of the NVSPL trade union, which took place this week, the general situation in the institution and restructuring plans were discussed.

“During the meeting, the minister confirmed that any violations of mobbing, harassment or labor relations will be responded to, they will be investigated both within the ministry, and information will be forwarded to the responsible institutions. It was also agreed that the employees will be directly informed regarding the upcoming transformations of the institution”, T. Bagdonas wrote in the comment.

NVSPL has not had a permanent manager since October 2021, when the Minister of Health dismissed D. Bakšas from this position for the first time following establishing a gross violation of work duties.