ANS: Health-Care System Lacks Tens of Millions of Euros

Bratislava, April 5 (TASR) – Small and medium-sized hospitals reiterate that the health-care system will be short of €95 million in 2016 due to increasing expenditures on salaries, said Slovak Hospitals Association (ANS) president Marian Petko on

Facilities associated in ANS will be short €27 million this year, stated Petko. “We need more money in order to introduce relative peace in the sector, to provide health care at its standard levels and to adopt essential measures,” noted Petko.

Petko pointed to the underfinancing of the system last year as well, warning of the potential need to scrap particular wards due to the lack of money. More than 70 hospitals under ASN will be in need of more money for the salary increases of medical workers negotiated recently and for the rise in the minimum basic salaries.

Health Ministry spokesperson Stanislava Pondelova says minister Tomas Drucker is closely monitoring the situation. First off, Drucker says it’s important to assess the effectiveness of management of financial resources throughout the sector and to get to know the structure of expenditures and the structure of debts of individual medical facilities.

Dusan Zachar, analyst from the Institute for Economic and Social Reforms (INEKO), partly understands what hospitals are demanding. “It’s indubitable that smaller regional hospitals will see an increase in their expenditures on salaries of medical workers due to a new law on minimum salaries of nurses and other medical workers. These costs might not get compensated for even if the budget for health care is upped. It’s possible that these hospitals will suffer the most,” stated Zachar.

Petko stressed the significance of the completion of eHealth and DRG (diagnoses-related groups) systems. Slovakia is the only EU-member state that hasn’t introduced a DRG system yet. ANS will thus push for its incorporation in the new Government Manifesto.