Prague, Aug 2 (CTK) – The elite Na Homolce hospital in Prague operated a loss-making medical office for diplomats and exporters in the Czech House in Moscow for more than ten years, for which it annually paid some 2.5 million crowns, and it closed it last year only, daily Lidove noviny (LN) writes today.
The surgery with a Czech doctor was opened in Moscow in October 2005 with a consent of the health and foreign affairs ministries and at the request of the Czech embassy in the Russian capital.
Milos Jaro, who headed the Czech House in 2001-2013, justified the existence of the medical office. He told LN that the provision of health care in Russia is complicated and its quality in common hospitals is poor. The doctor in the Czech surgery helped save health and in some cases even life of the people staying in the Czech House, he indicated.
The Na Homolce hospital, which is a state subsidised organisation funded from tax-payers’ pockets, covered all costs of the surgery in Moscow though it had no licence for its operation. Health insurance companies did not cover the treatment of Czech citizens in this facility, LN writes.
Besides, the supplies of medicines for the surgery were not officially secured and they had to be sent by diplomatic mail, LN adds.
The hospital terminated the operation of the medical office in Moscow as of January 1, 2016.
Jaro praised the doctor who was working in the surgery.
She was a Volhynian Czech who could speak Russian fluently and had contacts in hospitals in Moscow. She examined the patients herself, but she was also able to secure various special medical check-ups for them. Moreover, she helped facilitate the process by cancelling the examinations that the patients did not need as “Russians always tried to provide as many check-ups as possible for the people who paid them themselves though some were unnecessary,” Jaro said.
The surgery only served to the people in the Czech House in Moscow where some 700-800 stayed at once. They included representatives of Czech firms and their families who stayed there for long, “short-term” travellers, such as businesspeople and a few tourists, as well as members of the government delegations, Jaro told LN.
He assessed the operation of the Czech medical office positively. Its establishment was initiated by the Czech Embassy in Moscow under ambassador Jaroslav Basta, he added.
Jaro also said he can understand the decision to close the surgery in 2016 and that he would have done the same. “It is not needed now that one-third of the firms is in the Czech House (compared to the situation ten years ago),” he added.
Asked about the annual loss of 2.5 million crowns, Jaro said the surgery had followed all rules and regulations and the doctor always kept the books accurately “without making some money on the side” in his opinion.
“I really think that the medical office for Czech citizens was meaningful since the Czech House was full of people then,” Jaro told LN.
The Czech House lucrative complex in the centre of Moscow is part of the network of the Czech Centres, subsidised organisations of the Foreign Ministry, that promote the Czech Republic abroad in the spheres of culture, education, trade and tourism.
($1=22.123 crowns)
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