Prague, Jan 27 (CTK) – Czech Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka (Social Democrats, CSSD) want a part of the revenue from the excise tax on alcohol and tobacco to go to a fund, from which investments of public hospitals would be covered, he said on Friday.
The investment fund would be administered by the Health Ministry, Sobotka said.
Health Minister Miloslav Ludvik (CSSD) said the health insurance payments that the hospitals receive can cover their operation costs but not their investments.
The revenues of the public health insurance were 261 billion crowns in 2016. This year, they are projected at 274 billion crowns.
Several billion crowns should be sent to the fund a year.
Sobotka said Czech hospitals financed some of their investments from EU subsidies, but they cannot rely on the money from the European funds in future.
The EU funds were not available for Prague hospitals because Prague is too rich to be granted subsidies.
Sobotka talked about the establishment of the investment fund with representatives of university hospitals that are run by the Health Ministry.
Ludvik said Czech hospitals lack money for investments worth tens of billions of crowns according to his rough estimate. “We can treat patients very well, but we also need to have enough space to treat them,” he said.
Ludvik said his ministry will make an outlook of the investments needed to be carried out in Czech hospitals in the next few years.
Sobotka said the government would approve the establishment of the investment fund before the autumn general election, but parliament will deal with the related bills in the next election period.
