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Slovak Medical Chamber of Specialists proposes in up to two years to increase the payments for state policyholders on minimum of 5%. Government should, according to the union, also commit itself for seeking of the fair solutions of the problem with increasing of salaries of healthcare professionals. In the terms of private outpatient clinics it is, according to the president of union, unacceptable to disadvantage the healthcare professionals in these institutions in any way against other types of institutions, especially the state ones.  

According to the Slovak Medical Union of Specialist not all nurses agree with the opinion of their Chamber, which promotes the Act on wage claims of nurses. President of the Union, Andrej Janco, considers the attitude of the head of Chamber of Nurses and Midwives, Mária Lévyová, directly threatens their jobs. Nurses are, however, allegedly afraid to talk about it publicly, as their professional competency is controlled by the chamber of nurses: if they lost the professional competency they would lose their job.

Statements about the profit prohibition of the insurance companies may be allegedly used against the Slovak Republic. According to advocate Jana Martinková, in case when implementation of the planned measures in legislation sphere will affect the property rights of the shareholders of health insurance companies and there will be further disputes with state, exactly these statements may be used against Slovakia. Shareholders might, according to her, be able to speak about the intention to harm their rights and the real public interest and protection of constitutional rights of policyholders might be unnecessarily pushed into the background. 

Všeobecná zdravotná poisťovňa (General Health Insurance Company) could get more money from new way of risk-adjusted redistribution of insurance contributions between health insurance companies for the first time in October this year. This should by brought by the amendment to the Act on health insurance submitted to the Parliament by Richard Raši. Risk adjustment should be calculated by the Healthcare Surveillance Authority.

Although Všeobecná zdravotná poisťovňa – VšZP (General Health Insurance Company) offered additional sources to some hospitals. In last year, however, VšZP spent on hospitals 8% less than the year before. While in 2010 the VšZP's costs on inpatient health care reached more than € 815 million, last year it was only € 752 million. The biggest health insurance company decreased its expenses also on pharmaceuticals in 2011, aproximately by the same rate. Otherwise, costs on outpatient care and medical devices increased, in both cases by about 4%.

Healthcare specialists announced possible protests and strikes, if only salaries of hospital doctors and nurses will be increased. According to the president of Slovak Medical Union of Specialists, Andrej Janco, the raise of salaries of doctors and nurses is taking place at the expense of all others in the system. Union represents about 600 private clinics. President of the Union admits that the financial resources to cover wage increasing of all healthcare professionals are missing. But he also states that increasing of wages of doctors and nurses without increasing of salaries of other healthcare professionals will cause commotion. 

For non-registered human pharmaceutical prescription should be newly responsible the prescribing doctor. For therapeutic use of pharmaceuticals the informed consent of the patient should also be required. This results from the amendment to the act on pharmaceuticals and medical devices. The aim of this measure is especially the adoption of European legislation. Legislative frame tightens the supervision over the human pharmaceuticals, market surveillance and sanctions for non-compliance with the relevant assessment.

Minister of Health Zuzana Zvolenská continued this week in the personal changes in the state-run organizations. Changes thus took place on further directors´ posts in hospitals. New head of the MoH noticed the main hygienist and directors of hospitals in Bratislava, Banská Bystrica, Žilina, Prešov and Košice and directors of some emergency services. Zvolenská according to the spokeswoman of the Ministry prefers the experts with practice and she installed in the managerial posts people, who were addicted to this issue long-termly and are seen as experts in their field.

Debt in healthcare system has decreased last year almost by € 131.2 million thanks to the bail-out of the state-owned hospitals. At the end of last year the debt was € 154.01 million. This results from the report on the development of debts in the health sector. Hospitals in the scope of self-governmental units have the biggest problem with indebtedness and they owe the most to the suppliers of pharmaceuticals and medical devices.

According to the head of the Association of Hospitals in Slovakia, Marián Petko, from June there will be a threat of dismissals of nurses and cancellation of departments in hospitals. Costs of small hospitals on wages are already now in amount of 85% of their total costs. After further raise of salaries of doctors in July hospitals will have to use all their resources on salaries. Petko urged nurses for a compromise, for example that the wages would increase gradually.