Small hospitals want to terminate their contracts

According to daily Pravda from 21/12/2011 small hospitals will probably next year resort themselves to unpopular measures and terminate their contracts with the health insurance companies. Patients are thereby threatened with the fact that they will pay for the treatment by themselves. Hospitals were given into a difficult situation by the doctors’ salary increase, which they can not afford. They asked for € 50 million from Ministry of Finance, but Minister of Finance does not want to give it to them yet. Even Minister of Health, who did not negotiate with Minister of Finance yet, does not want to help them. According to Association of Hospitals in Slovakia the only defensive mechanism of hospitals is the terminating of contracts with the health insurance companies.