Prague, Aug 7 (CTK) – Most Czech parties, including Andrej Babis’s ANO, the favourite of the forthcoming October general election, are for the reintroduction of fees for the stay in hospital, the idea only rejected by the Social Democrats (CSSD) and Communists (KSCM), daily Hospodarske noviny (HN) writes today.
Social Democrat election leader Lubomir Zaoralek vows to die for the health system without the fees, but his attitude is increasingly isolated, HN writes, adding that even in the neighbouring Slovakia, the government of Prime Minister Robert Fico, also a Social Democrat, has approved an increase in the payment for acute care.
“A discussion on the fee for hospitalisation that would cover non-health services such as food, cleanup and others is acceptable,” ANO health expert Adam Vojtech told the paper.
“We may suggest the sum of 60 crowns a day,” Vojtech said.
The sum is bearable and it would be also restricted by an annual limit of 2,000-2,500 crowns in order to protect socially weak groups such as pensioners or children, HN said.
The Christian Democrats (KDU-CSL) and the opposition TOP 09 are speaking in a similar way.
The Constitutional Court cancelled the charges for hospitalisation in 2013.
The patients’ cash fees in health care were introduced by the right-wing government of Mirek Topolanek (Civic Democrats, ODS) in 2008.
The current centre-left government of the CSSD, ANO and the KDU-CSL abolished the fee per prescription and per visit to a doctor as of January 2015, in harmony with its policy statement. It did not reintroduce the fee per day in hospital either. Only the fee for emergency ward is preserved.
The government also has rejected the payment for “above-standard treatment.”
However, this might be changed by the election, too.
The idea is acceptable for ANO, the Christian Democrats, TOP 09 and the opposition Civic Democratic Party (ODS).
ODS deputy chairman Martin Kupka said the “above-standard treatment” could bring a wider choice as well as more responsibility to patients.
“It should be put clearly for what patients are entitled, which will be fully covered, and for what they can pay if they want,” Kupka said.
This may mean another source for financing of the health care system, Vojtech said.
Above-standard treatment was introduced by former health minister Leos Heger (TOP 09) in 2012.
Along with its renewal, it would be good if patients could pay “one or two hundred crowns more” for being able to consult a specialist doctor without any recommendation from their general practitioner, Heger said.
At present, the payment of 90 crowns for emergency treatment is the only remaining fee.
However, doctors say this is not enough to fend off treatment of trivial cases and the emergency wards are often overcrowded.
“Instead of consulting a general practitioner, lots of people come to the emergency wards in a hospital after 5:00. These are often people who may only suffer from a sore throat,” HN quotes a doctor, Jiri Sedo, as saying.
The fee might be raised to over 200 crowns, Sedo said.
However, the current rule that the fee is returned to the patients whose health condition is as serious as to be hospitalised afterwards should be maintained, he added.
($1 = 21.961 crowns)
