They agree to disagree

Health Minister Viliam Čislák and President Andrej Kiska cannot agree on the outcome of their Monday meeting whose goal was to discuss the current situation in Slovakia's healthcare system. Kiska left feeling none the wiser about how the system's problems were being addressed. He didn't receive any information during the meeting about any measures to halt what he called the inefficient use of money in the system. The president pointed to several problems in health care, including what he described as a bad atmosphere between doctors and patients, the absence of a DRG (Diagnoses Related Group) system and unclear conditions in terms of contracting health care providers. Although he doesn't have any powers to order the minister, he views it as his right and duty to ask questions on this topic.

Health Minister Viliam Čislák reacted by saying that the president's statement was prepared in advance and was not consistent with what was actually discussed at the meeting. He noted that during this electoral term the ministry has stabilised the number of doctors and nurses in the state-run healthcare sector by dealing with their salaries and the ministry has had several hospitals renovated using EU funds. The ministry has also begun to tackle the issue of the shortage of general practitioners and has scrapped fees at doctor's practices. Čislák went on to call it 'unfortunate' that Kiska omitted one of the core issues that they debated - an ongoing plan for the recovery of hospitals. "As part of this plan, a number of state-owned hospitals have stopped piling up debts thanks to strict management", said the minister.