Drucker: Health Care Needs More Money in 2017

Bratislava, December 1 (TASR) – A €50-million budget reserve for health care next year won’t be enough, Health Minister Tomas Drucker (a Smer-SD nominee) told TASR on Thursday.

“It’s necessary to have enough money to prevent the system from collapsing. I’m afraid that the amount of money currently going into health care isn’t enough,” said Drucker, adding that he’ll approach the Finance Ministry to ask for additional funding.

The minister pointed out that the neighbouring Czech Republic spends around €500 million more than Slovakia on health care annually. At the same time he added that he isn’t happy with the overall health-care budget of €1.37 billion for 2017, even though it’s €120 million higher than this year’s.

“If we want to introduce unpopular and not particularly easy measures, we need to have money at our disposal to prevent the health-care system from destabilising,” said Drucker.

“Many displays of ineffectiveness and redundancies in health care have emerged due to a lack of money, with many providers then creating money artificially in order to settle their liabilities,” said Drucker, adding that the situation should be remedied by the introduction of standard diagnostic and therapeutic procedures in health care. This reform will need some time to take effect, however, added the minister.