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Nurses are asking the members of Parliament and Government for crisis scenario for the case, if the Constitutional Court declared the act on their wages as unconstitutional or would decide on this legal standard for too long. This requirement was today interpreted on the meeting of Parliamentary Health Committee by the President of the Trade Union of Nurses and Midwives, Viliam Záborský. Representatives of nurses are also asking for immediate legislation measures, which will stop the employers by dividing of the duties of nurses to nurses and administrative stuff.

Healthcare Surveillance Authority on the base of data from health insurance companies pre-registered by the end of June totally 111 803 applications for the change of insurance company from next year. Health insurance company can be changed only once a year. If the policyholder wants to change the insurance company from January 1, 2013, an application must be submitted by the September 30, 2012. Last year totally 162 399 applications were submitted, of which 5 068 was not accepted by the Authority due to various errors. 

Ministry of Health has prepared an analysis of how the Government could create one insurance company. Material talks about three ways how the state could create one insurance company. First one is the leasing of insurance stock. Shareholders would thus still own the insurance companies, but state would make the decisions. Second is purchasing of shares or specific assets. If the negotiation on purchasing failed, ministry admits also the expropriation.

Control in the hospitals and outpatient clinics is saving health insurance companies an appreciable resources. In 2011 it was € 237 million for all three health insurance companies together. Compared to previous year the financial effect from controlling activity reached the increasing by almost € 69 million. For all that, lower number of employees of health insurance companies than in previous years was needed for their controls.

Slovak Trade Union of Health and Social Services has signed the higher level collective contract with the Association of Faculty Hospitals. Contract adjusts the salaries of all employees in 17 faculty hospitals by 8% with effect from July 1, 2012. Trade union wants to enforce the similar adjustment also by the Association of Hospitals in Slovakia, which associates other, smaller hospitals. The aim of the trade union is to achieve the adjustment of salaries of all employees in 62 hospitals associated in the Association of Hospitals in Slovakia. 

Slovak Chamber of Nurses and Midwives has on Monday turned to the Chairman of the Parliament Pavol Paška. They asked him for a cooperation and coordination of all activities connected with the proceedings on the Constitutional Court. As the Chamber is not a participant of the proceeding, it offered Paška the legal and technical cooperation. According to her Presiden, Chamber wants the act on minimum wage claims of nurses to be considered as soon as possible and adjudicated as valid and in accordance with the Constitution.

Monika Pažinková should be a new President of the Healthcare Surveillance Authority (HSA) from the beginning of August. She should replace Ján Gajdoš, who resigned. Minister of Health Zuzana Zvolenská has already submitted the proposal for her appointment to the governmental meeting. Monika Pažinková has been a member of Supervisory Board of the Authority from February last year.

Ministry of Health led by Zuzana Zvolenská wants to have better overview about management in the state hospitals. This should be provided by the automated data collection from the information systems of the institutions. Ministry will learn more about the financial and operation costs from it. Ministry wants this way make a possibility to regularly evaluate and compare the financial and operation indicators in hospitals.

Health insurance company Dôvera handed over the data, which will serve for the elaboration of the predictor of chronic disease (PCG) into the reallocation. At the same time, however, Dôvera pointed out that this is sensitive information about policyholders and Ministry of Health still publicly did not confirm the security of the data. Information contains for example the information on the consumption of pharmaceuticals and on the diagnosis of each individual citizen.

Minister of Health, Zuzana Zvolenská, wants to present the intention to create one health insurance company in Slovakia in very short time and she did not exclude that it will happen next week. How concretely could this issue be solved, however, the head of department did not want specified. She only admitted that one of the possibilities is the buying-out of private health insurance companies. But there still may be more options.