MP Vladimíra Marcinková (SaS). (source: TASR)
Parliament has rejected a proposed legal amendment that would guarantee child patients could be accompanied by a parent in hospital.
Vladimíra Marcinková (SaS), who put forward the amendment, criticized MPs from the governing coalition parties Hlas, Smer and SNS, for not backing the proposal.
"Ask presidential candidate [Peter] Pellegrini, why KHL hockey players are important to him, but children in hospitals are not," Marcinková wrote in an Instagram post.
Earlier this month, Pellegrini, the Speaker of Parliament, called on the Slovak Ice-hockey Association (SZĽH) to reassess its position to not allow players in the Russian KHL to participate in this year's World Championship in the Czech Republic.
"His party is in charge of a Health Ministry with a record budget this year. With that money, they could build completely new children's wards everywhere in Slovakia, but no, they are not even able to vote to allow a parent to be able to stay with their child in a chair."
According to Marcinková, current regulations regarding a child's right to be accompanied by their parent in hospital are not uniformly upheld, with individual medical facilities interpreting them differently.
The MP points out that the presence of a parent for a child in hospital has both medical and financial benefits - hospitalisation of the child is shorter, the cost of treatment is lower, and recovery is better than if a parent is absent. She added that the child is also more willing to cooperate with medical staff in such cases.
