Illustrative stock photo (source: SITA)
Not all foreigners in Slovakia are entitled to Covid-19 vaccination — not even after the parliament gave the green light to the Health Ministry-sponsored law on which the community of foreigners had been pinning high expectations.
The law, which came into force in the first half of April, was only a partial solution to the lack of access to vaccination. It entitled foreigners who have been granted subsidiary protection in Slovakia or foreign medical students who work in Slovak hospitals to the vaccine.
But foreigners living in Slovakia without access to the country's public health insurance are still not entitled.
“The legislative change allows the Health Ministry to add more groups entitled to Covid-19 vaccination,” the ministry's spokesperson, Zuzana Eliášová, told The Slovak Spectator. “As soon as such a decision is made, we will inform [the public] about it.”
The spokesperson has not said, nor has there been any indication if the ministry was pondering of adding other groups of foreigners on the list of people who can access the vaccine anytime soon.
Slovakia is currently focusing on vaccinating its citizens and inhabitants who do have public health insurance.
Foreigners who are legally employed in Slovakia should not therefore have a problem with vaccination. Their employer is required to pay the health insurance levies for them. They are holders of the Slovak public health insurance card, a document that vaccination centres may require from people when they come to get their jab.
Citizens of the European Union with the right to the reimbursement of the full range of health care should be able to get a jab in the vaccination centres across Slovakia, too.
