BRATISLAVA, November 4, (WEBNOVINY) – At their meeting on Friday President Ivan Gasparovic recommended Health Minister Ivan Uhliarik to halt the transformation of hospitals into joint-stock companies. “After meeting with the health minister and a phone conversation with the prime minister I decided that the transformation will not go on. I recommended the Cabinet to not approve the founding documents and postpone this transformation until after the election,” informed President Gasparovic. According to him it would be ideal if the Cabinet amended the law ordering the transformation and drop the respective provisions from it.
The presidential spokesman Marek Trubac informed that one of the reasons behind the president’s decision was the public opinion as people are supposedly afraid that transforming the hospitals would lead to their privatization and subsequent shutdown. Gasparovic also says that if 2,000 doctors quit Slovak hospitals, it would lead to a collapse of healthcare. Halting the transformation is among the four demands of hospital doctors who filed their notices in order to protest against bad situation in Slovak healthcare. The president urged the protesting doctors to consider his position to the transformation and reassess their decision to leave their jobs.
However, Health Minister Ivan Uhliarik is still convinced that in spite of early elections slated for March 10 the transformation should continue, as it was regularly adopted by the Cabinet and the parliament. The minister said he would prepare founding documents and statutes of the to-be joint-stock companies even though these have to be approved by the Cabinet and before that by the president.
Earlier on Friday, SMER-SD MPs filed a proposal for convening an unscheduled session of the parliament to exclusively deal with the halting of the hospitals‘ transformation. The party chairman Robert Fico informed on the initiative adding that the unscheduled session has to take place latest next Friday. “The Cabinet which is only a caretaker one, without confidence of the parliament, has, according to the adopted constitutional law, no right to adopt essential social and economic measures. And I consider continuing the transformation to be a decision from this category,” said Fico. According to the resolution which SMER-SD MPs submitted to be discussed at the session, the parliament should also require the Cabinet to submit draft laws on abandoning the transformation in an expedited legislative procedure.
The revision to the law on health insurance companies, which took effect in April of this year, facilitates transformation of state-run hospitals into joint stock companies. Hospitals have time to do so by the end of the year, but the deadline can be moved up by six months in justified cases. The state will be a founder and a 100-percent shareholder of the future joint-stock companies and the Health Ministry or a respective ministry, e.g. the Transport or Defense Ministry, will act on their behalf in specific cases. New joint stock companies will be responsible for all liabilities and claims as well as obligations toward employees. Altogether 31 facilities, for which the parliament already approved 350 million euros to settle their debts, are to undergo transformation.
SITA