CHILDREN’S doctor from Nitra Zuzana Pechočiaková, dismissed inspector Ľubica Lapinová and samizdat publisher Oleg Pastier received the 2014 White Crow award given by the Fair-Play Alliance and Via Iuris on November 17.
Pechočiaková was demoted by the Nitra Faculty Hospital management last year after pointing out that certain information in the health documentation of an infant had been blanked out illicitly. The child was first treated for pneumonia with Gentamicin at Nitra Hospital. As his condition was not improving, his parents decided to take him to Bratislava University Hospital. According to the father, they were told in Bratislava that their son Michal had nearly died of an overdose of the aforementioned drug. It was this information that was blanked out of the child’s health records. The scandal eventually led to the dismissal of hospital deputy director Alena Ďurišová, and Pechočiaková was reinstated to her previous post, the TASR newswire wrote.
“There have been times when I cried, but I would do it again,” Pechočiaková told TASR. “Nevertheless, I’m sorry that people from the hospital who had negative attitudes towards me still have not apologised.”
Lapinová, a former inspector of the National Forestry Centre, revealed violations of the law in public tenders worth more than €500,000 in total in 2011. She was fired after refusing to comply when the centre’s director demanded that she should modify inspection results. She is currently taking legal action over the validity of her dismissal, TASR wrote.
Oleg Pastier is known as a publisher and author of poetry and radio features. He was one of the key figures of the civil samizdat movement during the communist regime. He did not attend the ceremony in person because of health problems, TASR reported.
“When you do not name the lie and manipulation aloud, you will have to live with it during the entire life and maybe longer,” reads the note Pastier sent, as quoted by TASR. “Every courageous individual attempt against any inequity is an attempt for us all.”
Source: TASR
Compiled by Radka Minarechová from press reports
The Slovak Spectator cannot vouch for the accuracy of the information presented in its Flash News postings.
