The Ministry of Health has decided to cut the number of available beds in hospitals throughout Slovakia almost in half, cutting out any of the bed-nights that are not crucial or essential.
The move will see the number of beds in the country drop from 34,000 at present to just 19,000 up till 2030 , with the consequence that some hospitals might even be forced to close. home care services and a bigger burden on general practitioners is likely to result from the move.
The Ministry’s move can hardly be criticised considering that the country has more beds per capita than the mean figure for the OECD countries.
In the meantime, Bratislava is planning constructing an entirely new 700-bed hospital worth EUR 250 million near Patronka, but a private investor will finance the construction in a long-term payback deal, with the Ministry of Health denying that it is privatisation, while the Health Policy Institute refers to the move as a kind of privatisation.
Having done some reading of various UN and EU reports, both current and historical, on the SVK health service I have to wonder why these proposed cuts will take 17 years to implement. Besides having one of the highet number of hospital beds per capita in Europe, Slovakia has one of the lowest occupancy rates. Just over 30% of the beds are empty at any given time which suggests that, without any other reforms of in patient care, massive savings could be implemented immediately without creating problems. I also have to wonder why, when a third of the staff have basically nothing to do, Slovakia comes top of many mortality tables – cancer, heart conditions, child mortality etc,. Quality not quantity should be the guiding rule of health service reform along with a bit more coal on the fire! Who put the slow in Slowvakia?
Oh my, my, ….what about all those poor `bad back` patient that need treatment in Slowvakia ???
Perhaps rather than being on constant `sick note` leave they will actually have to go and work !
Whoa…… at last some common sense. A change to the way hospitals are funded would also help, paying them for the number of bodies in beds encourages having a “full house”.