The Slovak cabinet will have to decide whether to change the legal form of state-run hospitals to joint-stock companies. On Wednesday, October 26, Health Minister Ivan Uhliarik (Christian Democratic Movement (KDH)) said that he would ask his colleagues for a clear position on whether his ministry should or should not continue the reforms after Prime Minister Iveta Radičová's government lost the confidence of parliament earlier this month.
Uhliarik said that as a political realist he needed an explicit mandate in the current situation. "I'll ask the cabinet to take a clear position on whether we are to finish transforming the hospitals. If the cabinet approves my mandate, I'll continue with the transformation in line with the law. If I get no mandate, I'll prepare all processes so that everything is ready for a decision by the new cabinet following the early elections in March," the minister said, as quoted by the SITA newswire.
Uhliarik made the statement on Wednesday in the face of doctors' trade unions insisting that they would not halt the mass resignations of hospital doctors intended, among other things, to force the Health Ministry to halt the transformation, the TASR newswire wrote.
Source: TASR
Compiled by Zuzana Vilikovská from press reports
The Slovak Spectator cannot vouch for the accuracy of the information presented in its Flash News postings.
