The extraordinary parliamentary session focusing on issues of health care and education was held on Thursday. It was initiated by opposition members who collected the 35 signatures necessary for summoning the session.
After two failed attempts to summon the parliament, this meeting finally reached the quorum of 76 MPs with 10 of SMER MPs attending. According to Parliamentary Chairman Peter Pellegrini, if the session was a priority for the Opposition, they would all have come to the session from the outset and it would have opened without any problems. "You should all be at work", warned the Parliamentary Chairman.
Finally, the session was opened at the third try. Protesting nurses and teachers also entered the parliament chamber to watch the session from the balcony as it is open to the public. They were, however, not allowed in unlike other members of public were. Vladimir Crmoman of the Slovak Teachers' Initiative: "We have come here as a group as we had agreed with nurses, some coming as early as 9:15. We weren't let in and we said that there are some organised groups coming to sit in the balcony but they weren't coming." Martin Dorcak from the communication office of the Slovak Parliament opposed: "We let people in at 9:45. As soon as the seats were taken, we let others to sit in the cinema hall due to the great demand,"
The extraordinary parliamentary discussion turned into blaming different governments for what they did and haven't done for teachers. "The question is how did you use up your 4 years' mandate. When we have a closer look we can say that you used it up to have changed / alternated 3 Education Ministers the result of which is 14 thousand teachers on strike," said opposition MP Jozef Viskupic. The current Education Minister Juraj Draxler named the problem political: "There is no peace for work. I wanted to protect the resort from various political interests while we are instead facing constant attacks and calls for explaining something for over a half a year."
The extraordinary parliamentary session dealing with education as well as health care finished after 16 hours with two resolutions proposed by ruling SMER MPs. As to the education, the problems should be solved by systematic changes in this resort across the whole political spectrum. The public finance consolidation provided by this government worked out the systematic premises for sustainable financing of schools and science in Slovakia. The PMs bind all political parties who take part in the general election race to adopt a national education program for the years 2016 - 2024 and guarantee an effective, just and transparent system of financing schools and science in line with OECD recommendations.
As to the health care system, the parliament calls for enforcing the trust of patients to health care workers. It also points out the importance of recovery in the Slovak health care system. The parliament calls on the government to continue in strictly set conditions such as the DRG system, eHealth, new rules for buying health care technology, etc.
The education resolution was supported by 78 and the health care resolution by 80 members of parliament.
Source: RTVS
