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4. Health Care
The Government considers health, equality in health care provision, and health care availability as the fundamental right of every citizen. Maintenance and improvement of health is the best investment for a strong economy and satisfied society. The Government considers health care to be one of its priorities. The mission of health care is the provision of care to the public using public money and therefore it has to be under public scrutiny.
The Government will ensure the principle of solidarity in health care. A socially-oriented state must not dispose of the responsibility for ensuring access to adequate health care to all its citizens. The scope of this care must be defined by the law and, to that extent, health care must be financed from health insurance.
Already in 2006, the Government will cancel some fees that are not directly related to the provision of health care and ensure compensation for the providers.
The Government is aware that the discrepancy between the lack of funds and the expectations of the population can only be solved by maintaining economically and socially sustainable participation in selected types of health care. The Government considers the support of voluntary health insurance to be critical while enabling access to health care not paid from the health insurance and to a reduction of the immediate financial impact of such participation. The Government will consider the possibility of tax relief against payments of the voluntary health insurance.
It will be an important task for the Government to restore the citizens' trust towards health care providers, to humanise the health care staff's attitude to patients, which, however, is conditional upon adequate improvement of health care staff remuneration.
The Government will ensure an increase of funds for health care in 2007 by increasing insurance premium payments for citizens where the payer is the state from 4% of the average wage to 5%. The Government will ensure that public spending in health care expressed in GDP percent has a growth tendency and that it respects the principle of approximation to advanced states of the European Union.
The Government will support multi-source financing of health care. It will contribute to the fund for compensation of extremely demanding procedures.
The Government considers the constitutionally guaranteed system of health insurance, based on the solidarity principle, to constitute the basis of health care funding. The Government will restore the public character of the Všeobecná zdravotná poistovňa and Spoločná zdravotná poistovňa health insurance companies. The Government will enforce such a legal environment, in which all health insurance companies have equal conditions regardless of their legal form, and which prevents insurance companies from inefficient management of the funds of the insured. The Government will enforce that the amount of health insurance companies' operating costs as of 2007 be limited by law to a maximum of 4% of the mandatory health insurance premiums collected.
The Government will not admit such legislative changes in health care that could lead to damaging the reputation of the Slovak Republic by failing to ensure an adequate protection of domestic and foreign investments. The Government accepts all forms of ownership of health care facilities and it will create conditions for their multi-source financing.
The Government will revoke the present form of insurance premiums accounting.
The Government will pay maximum attention to the use of all possibilities of financing investment activities in health care, including the EU funds.
The Government considers the basic element in health care to be the first-contact physicians, and therefore it will engage in efforts to improve conditions for their work and continued education. In 2007, the Government will enforce restoration of the structure of districts for paediatricians, general practitioners, gynaecologists, and dentists, while maintaining the citizen's free choice of health care provider.
The Government will enforce the orientation of health care on prevention and timely diagnostics of diseases, support the implementation of the most important society-wide preventive programmes, and enforce a comprehensive programme of care for children and the elderly. The Government will adopt measures that will enable people to receive a spa treatment for those who need it most and cannot afford it.
The Government supports decentralisation in health care management while introducing the methodological, regulatory, and control role of the state vis-?-vis all health care facilities. In hospital care, it will enforce the role of the state as the owner of faculty health care facilities, facilities with nationwide scope, and those performing special tasks in emergency situations.
The Government will ensure availability and quality of health care for all citizens and it will prevent uncontrolled and inefficient extension of the network of health care facilities. At the same time, it will support the restructuring of the network of health care facilities giving preference to the transfer of activities to the outpatient sphere - including walk-in care, to achieve purposeful specialisation and growth in quality and productivity of the services provided. Medically and financially highly demanding health care procedures will only be provided at accredited workplaces of selected facilities.
The Government will support the creation of conditions for transparent competition of health care providers. At the same time, it will support creation of a system of a differentiated approach in establishing contractual relationships between health insurance companies and health care providers according to the criteria of efficiency and quality of health care provided.
The Government considers patient safety to be an extremely important part of the health care system and therefore it will support introduction of quality systems and efficiency in all areas of health care provision to achieve a medical and sanitary epidemiological standard compliant with EU norms.
The Government will enforce such development of the health care education system that will ensure an adequate number of high-quality professionals for all health care activities. It will reconsider the number of faculty hospitals to return dignity to these institutions corresponding to their importance and quality.
The Government respects the professional and trade union organisations in health care and guarantees co-operation therewith particularly when drafting legislation and conceptual blueprints. The main objective in the field of the medicinal product policy is to ensure efficient, safe and high-quality medicinal products for the entire population in the objectively needed amount and at an adequate price. The Government will enforce the principle that there be at least one medicinal product for every more serious disease fully paid by the health insurance, and it will engage in efforts to significantly reduce the supplementary payments, or user fees, by the population towards medicinal products and medical devices. The Government will apply a transparent system for the medicinal product policy based on applicable EU directives.
The Government will attend to increasing the importance of public health care in maintaining citizens' health. With their activities and comprehensive professional activity, public health care institutions must minimise the action of risk factors upon public health, which may lead to improvement of life quality and extending human life.
The critical objective of the government will be to develop the health care system informatisation at all levels. The Government will ensure legislative and institutional conditions for implementation of information and communication systems that will essentially assist in improvement of quality, cost efficiency and time availability of services. In this area, the Government will support the project of health care informatisation and gradually implement the objectives of the national eHealth strategy.
An important objective of the Government will be the support of new, more transparent payment mechanisms for health care procedures.
The Government will enforce substantial debureaucratisation of health care and cancel all unnecessary administration and duplicity in the activities of the Ministry of Health, Health care Surveillance Authority, and other institutions. In 2007, these institutions will be subject to thorough activity audit with subsequent reconsideration of the headcount only for the activities that are inevitable, necessary for the entire society, and that are prescribed by law.
