Sasko: Commission Addressing Emergency Ambulance Service to Meet on Wednesday
Bratislava, 7 September (TASR) - The situation in Slovakia's emergency medical services (ZZS) will be addressed by a 22-member commission for emergency healthcare, with its first meeting slated to take place on Wednesday (9 September), Health Minister Kamil Sasko (Voice-SD) announced to the House Health Committee on Monday, adding that he will chair the commission.
Sasko intends to attend the commission's meetings personally and present two equally viable alternatives for how the system could operate. According to the minister, the commission will include representatives from across the sector, including paramedics, professional chambers and trade unions. The opposition has criticised the commission's composition, however, expressing concern that financial groups Agel and Penta will have a majority.
Sasko stated that the Health Ministry has prepared the legal framework reflecting the second-instance decision of the Public Procurement Authority (UVO). "The commission for emergency healthcare will convene for an initial meeting this Wednesday," he told reporters.
"From our perspective, we will present the only two realistic alternatives. If commission members come up with a possible third alternative, that will also be discussed. That's where my role ends, and the commission and experts can discuss one alternative or the other," the minister said. He hopes the commission will reach a consensus and expects it to meet every week.
"I want one solution to be reached that will definitively ensure that the system for allocating ambulance stations is much better," he claimed, adding that nobody on the commission will force a solution. He did not specify the two alternatives, saying he wanted to present them to commission members first.
Opposition MP Frantisek Majersky (KDH) warned that the commission's statutes have been changed and that the professional community is not adequately represented. "Based on the draft statutes I have seen, it's clearly designed to give Agel and Penta a majority," he told reporters, noting that, for instance, the Chamber of Emergency Medical Services and the Society of Emergency Medicine each have one member.
Other organisations which, according to him, do not represent the paramedic community have two or three members. "So it has been designed to give them a majority, enabling them to outvote the professional community," he said.
In response, Sasko claimed he has not yet seen the nominations and rejected the claim that anyone would have a majority on the commission. He intends to review the list of members and nominations with Majersky.
MP Marek Krajci (Slovakia-For the People) tabled a motion to the House Health Committee concerning "the inability of the health minister to ensure a transparent selection process and standard operation of emergency medical services".
A tender for the operation of emergency medical service ambulances was launched by the Slovak Emergency Medical Service Operations Centre in May 2025. The opposition and some coalition members criticised the tender as non-transparent, prompting the Operations Centre to cancel it in August.
In February, police said that the anti-corruption unit of the Office for the Fight Against Organised Crime (UBOK) was dealing with several criminal complaints relating to the ambulance tender. On Monday, Sasko said he was not interfering in the work of the authorities in any way.
"If I need to waive someone's confidentiality, so be it, let it be properly investigated," he said, adding that he plans to wait for the outcome of the investigation and that his ministry always cooperates with the law enforcement when requested.
