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Tag: Ministry of Health
Smoking in shopping centres might be stopped. Businessmen are announcing the closing of coffeehouses. They claim that for companies and tradesmen providing cafes in these centres this will be liquidating. Ministry of Health is, however, decided to get though as according to the head of the Ministry, Zuzana Zvolenská, the number of children who are smoking is annually increasing. The definitive ban of smoking was already an object of discussion several times in the past. Last time it was in 2010, when it, however, did not pass again.
Ministry of Health does not have a review on the duties of hospital doctors in Slovakia and even hospitals do not know the number and kind of other duties of doctors working on part-time. The law does not require doctors to inform about it. According to the analyst Dušan Zachar from Ineko, the Ministry should aim to publish the list of doctors also with their duties as was some time ago made by Ministry of Education with the university employees.
Self-governmental regions will no more decide on authorization for providing of hospital. Ministry of Health wants to take this task to itself. Currently, the Ministry has licensing power for issuing the permits for emergency medical service ambulances, specialized hospitals, research and tissue facilities, bio-banks and reference laboratories. From the beginning of new year also general hospitals, including faculty and university hospitals, should join these institutions.
Ministry of Health do everything what it can to meet the statutory requirements of nurses. Head of the Ministry Zuzana Zvolenská this way responded to the concerns of nurses that they have been negotiating with Minister from March to no end. Slovak Chamber of Nurses and Midwives together with Trade Union of Nurses and Midwives formulated eight requirements and each one has designated its deadline. They do not exclude the mass deposing, but firstly they want to use other possibilities.
Nurses came out to Minister of Health Zuzana Zvolenská with new requirements. They do not exclude, that if these requirements will not be met, they will launch the strike activities. At the head of the list is a request for a legal standard, which will replace the stopped act on increasing of their salaries. Nurses, in addition to the solution of wage issue, want from the Minister to solve also the distribution of the duties, as some hospitals avoided the increasing of wages by shifting nurses to the position of administrative assistant.
One health insurance company, completion of Rázsochy hospital and salaries of healthcare professionals were the main topics of the discussion between Minister of Health Zuzana Zvolenská and Prime Minister Robert Fico, during the check day on the Ministry of Health. One of the most actual issues was the transition to one health insurance company system. As was stressed by Fico, they are ready to use all legal means to reach this aim, while they keep on relying on the schedule, which counts on implementation of unitary system from January 2014.
Ministry of Health will control the purchases and sales of properties of all organizations in its scope. Joint-stock companies, contributory organizations as well as non-profit organizations in the scope of Ministry will thus have to inform Ministry about the public procurements. Ministry will approve them, except of those with low value. According to the order of Minister Zuzana Zvolenská, all the departmental organizations have to submit to Ministry for approval their plans of investments and sale of the property for the next year, even by the end of the month.
Proposal of Minister of Health Zuzana Zvolenská for third wave of increasing of salaries of doctors, to which the Government committed itself in memorandum, is already in the world. Ministry and Medical Trade Union are, however, very careful in their expressions, any of this parties do not want to introduce the details of this proposal. Spokeswoman of the Ministry of Health, Zuzana Čižmáriková, said that they firstly want to discuss on this issue with doctors and only afterwards with public.
Proposal of the proceeding of merging of health insurance companies will come on Wednesday to Government without any major changes. Government will on Wednesday decide, whether Minister of Health Zuzana Zvolenská should continue in the plan of creation of one health insurance company until the summer 2014 or not. Her colleagues did not announce any objections against this plan, the objections in commentary proceeding were submitted especially by private health insurance companies. They tried to doubt the claim that if there would be only one insurance company in the market, there will be more money for health care.
According to Minister of Health Zuzana Zvolenská, man can be never satisfied with the budget for healthcare system, as there never will be enough money in health care. She, however, considers the final proposal as a success. She managed to negotiate more money for this department through the payments for policyholders. Original proposal calculated on the rate on the level of 4%, finally it should be 4.25% from the tax base.
