Pravda daily reported that the anti-corruption email service set up by the Health Ministry so that people could report corrupt practices in health care is failing. According to the daily, it is because nobody is actually using it. The anti-corruption service was set up at 13 state-run facilities at the beginning of June. Patients approached for bribes in return for health care or some kind of extra service were supposed to use the email address provided to report such practices. Soon after the new link was set up the daily discovered that directors of health-care facilities were monitoring the emails, leading to suspicions that complaints aimed at them personally or at their favourite members of staff might not be properly investigated. Despite the lack of responses, Health Minister Viliam Cislak views the email service as a step taken towards patients. He claimed that even a single complaint made in this way justifies the setting up of the new system. The daily notes that the Health Ministry set up its own email service back in 2011. A total of 65 complaints have been submitted this year, but only two have been passed on to the police for further investigation. The president of the Association for the Protection of Patients' Rights, Katarina Kafkova, noted that patients prefer the option of submitting complaints anonymously to sites that make this possible. She added that patients aren't aware of their rights and fear that complaints could lead to the disruption of their own treatment.
