Kalavská replaced by Pellegrini at the health minister post

PM Pellegrini will head the Health Ministry ad interim.

President Zuzana Čaputová thanks Andrea Kalavská for her work as a minister at the Health Ministry in Bratislava on December 16, 2019President Zuzana Čaputová thanks Andrea Kalavská for her work as a minister at the Health Ministry in Bratislava on December 16, 2019 (Source: TASR)

Prime Minister Peter Pellegrini (Smer) will lead the Health Ministry until the February 2020 elections. He will take over after Health Minister Andrea Kalavská decided to resign.

President Zuzana Čaputová received the two on December 17, and accepted Kalavská's resignation. She acknowledged her efforts to change the Slovak health-care sector for the better.

SkryťTurn off ads
Article continues after video advertisement
SkryťTurn off ads
Article continues after video advertisement

Related article PM Pellegrini did not change Kalavská’s mind and she has quit Read more 

“I'm convinced it was the right and justified ambition,” Čaputová said, as quoted in the press release. “I understand Kalavská’s disappointment.”

SkryťTurn off ads

Kalavská decided to resign after withdrawing the draft hospitals reform from the parliament on December 4, and after MPs did not support mandatory vaccination for children as a condition to be accepted to kindergartens.

A high death rate

Čaputová also grasped the opportunity and went on to criticise the lack of steps taken to date to improve health care. She pointed to the fact that a number of people who die is unnecessarily high in Slovakia compared to the EU average.

“It is our obligation to do what we can to decrease the mortality rate,” the president said, as quoted in the press release.

If no significant actions are taken, the situation will worsen, she added. Čaputová went on to say that if today’s trend of the lack of doctors and nurses goes on at the same pace, Slovakia may lack 12,000 medical staff in five years.

Top stories

News digest: Don't forget- clocks go forward on Sunday

More money from Brussels, US helicopters for Slovakia, and Bratislava airport's warning against fake websites.


6 h
Filip Toška holding chard in the hydroponic Hausnatura farm.

How a Mayan doomsday prophecy took a Slovak to hi-tech agriculture

Hydroponic farm run out of former telephone exchange.


9. mar
A Lutheran priest outside the Lutheran High School in Tisovec in 2007.

US teachers not rushing to teach English in Slovakia due to war

Dozens of Americans taught Slovak students in Tisovec in the past, but the local school is now struggling to find teachers from overseas.


21. mar
PM Eduard Heger announces his new political party, Demokrati, on March 7, 2023.

With his new party, Slovak PM embarks on a mission to unify

After two years as premier of an OĽaNO-led government, Eduard Heger is leaving the populist movement of Igor Matovič and hopes to establish a new political culture in Slovakia.


20. mar
SkryťClose ad