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News
Ministry of Health has definitively decided on the reduction of the payments for providers of emergency medical service from April the 1st. Compared with the original proposal their incomes will be decreased less, but ambulances are, nevertheless, dissatisfied. Decreased will be lastly only the fee for the ambulances without physiacian, which will fall from € 16,928.90 to € 16,028.46. Primarily it should have been reduced to € 15,200. According to the Ministry a total savings should this year reach an amount of € 2.4 million.
Negotiations of the Ministry of Health with the Slovak Medical Chamber and the Association of General Physicians for Children and Adolescents led to an agreement on the next steps in solving current problems with purchasing of vaccines. MoH, however, will not change the law but promised the simplification and removing of some administrative barriers, which will allow doctors an easier access to vaccines. Vaccines will be reportedly centrally purchased by the state and doctors will call down on them in the regional healthcare authorities.
Nurses and midwives will get financially better from April, as the members of Parliament approved the Act on minimum wages. Average wage claim of nurses and midwives, in comparison with the salary in the first half of last year, will increase by 23,89%. Minister of Health claims that increased expenses on wages should be covered by the combination state budget, as well as internal savings measures.
Increasing of the salaries approved by Parliament could be reportedly more harmful than helpful for nurses and midwives, daily Pravda reports. If hospitals do not have enough money, they will try to save by shifting the nurses to lower positions or they will dismiss them. The chairman of Slovak Trade Union of Health and Human Services warns before such a situation. According to him there is a threat that healthcare institutions will be looking for different ways how to avoid the increasing of salaries of nurses.
According to the President of the Association of Medical Emergency Service Ivo Krpelan the Ministry of Health will save on the ambulances more than it informed in its former statement. Since February 1st the new pricing measure, which is decreasing a fee for ambulances without physician, is in force. According to the Association, however, the overall impact will not be only € 2.7 million, as MoH claims, but in fact it will be € 4.7 million, as was stated in the original proposal of the Ministry. Pricing measure is according to the Association non-conceptual and non-systematic.
According to the Slovak Medical Union of Specialists the outpatient clinics, which are employing highly qualified nurses, will not get any money from Government or from insurance companies for ensuring the compliance with the new Act on minimum wage claims of nurses and midwives. President of the Union considers the Act as conscious, targeted and unconstitutional effort of the Government to eliminate the private clinics.
Act on pharmaceuticals, which has been valid only for two months, will be probably changed. Ministry of Health has submitted its amendment to the public comments. The reason should be the need to implement the Directive of the European Union. Amendment should apply from July 21st this year, but the intention of the Ministry is reportedly the approval of the proposal by the Government before the premature elections in March. Amendment, inter alia, mitigates the rules of offering the presents and benefits to the healthcare professionals from the pharmaceutical representatives.
Association of General Practitioners for Children and Adolescents is protesting against the declaration of Ministry of Health that it has definitely agreed with doctors on the process of mandatory vaccination of children. This information was published on the website of the MoH. Association has reportedly not participated on any negotiations with MoH on the day in question. As false designated the Association also the publicized information that vaccination in its new regime is only a problem of small group of doctors.
According to the Vice President of the Slovak Chamber of Nurses and Midwives, the nurses working in social care homes are, against their will, being shifted to the position of social nurse. This measure, according to her, is related to the Act on minimum wage claims of nurses, which from April the 1st increases their wages. Currently is reportedly a difference between the salary of nurse and social nurse only a few euros, but from April the 1st it may be, depending on the number of hours worked, even few hundred euros.
Operators of emergency services, who will, according to the new set of payments, have problem to meet material, technical and personal requirements, will be enabled to return the licenses for their operation, said Minister of Health Ivan Uhliarik. According to him the quality of emergency services is strictly controlled and will be henceforward monitored. If some of them will have a problem with the fulfilment of specified requirements, or will decide to no longer provide the emergency service, they will be enabled to return their license.
