Patients to protest healthcare reforms

Prague, March 21 (CTK) - The Czech Patients' Association will stage a protest against reforms outside the Health Ministry at 12:05 on March 27, its chairman Lubos Olejar told journalists yesterday.

The association says the reforms impoverish people. It calls for an end to be put to them, for the abolition of health care fees and for the government's resignation.

The association will stage the protest in cooperation with the National Council of Persons with a Health Handicap, health care and doctors' trade unions, the seniors' council and the ProAlt initiative.

The Czech Doctors' Chamber (CLK) also supports the action.

"We want to point to the monstrosity of the law on health care services," Olejar said.

He said the association was repeatedly alerting to problems in the laws already when they were being drafted.

Three laws on the health services take effect on April 1.

Olejar said the new legislation will cause problems with medicines, extra care, health aids as well as availability of health care.

He said the new laws will push the Czech Republic to the position of a developing country. That is why it is necessary to stop the "ultra-right" government.

""We appeal to people not to be scared and to come and say their clear stand," senator Alena Gajduskova (opposition Social Democrats, CSSD), vice-president of the Patients' Association, said.