PRESIDENT Rudolf Schuster returned to Slovakia on August 30 following a brief hospitalisation in Vienna for an unexplained fever.
Neither Austrian nor Slovak doctors were able to diagnose his week-long illness.
Schuster said his trip to Austria had opened the door for other Slovaks to seek treatment in foreign countries, treatment he said should be covered by Slovak health insurance firms.
The statement brought protests from the firms, which said foreign treatments were only covered in exceptional cases, as well as hundreds of calls to health insurers from interested patients.
When told that most ordinary Slovaks could not afford the treatment he had received, Schuster said, "Well, I can. I'm the President."
