Today, on Monday, 5 December 2022, Health Minister Vladimir Lengvarsky met with the European Commissioner for Health and Food Safety Stella Kyriakides and other members of her delegation.
At their morning meeting at the Ministry, the Commissioner was interested in the overall health situation, including the current theme of raising the salaries of doctors and other health professionals, as well as in further steps to stabilise them. Vladimír Lengvarský, the Minister of Health, also identified this as a necessary step, given that the number of doctors in Slovakia, but especially nurses, is below the EU average: Not only increased, competitive salaries or stabilization contributions for health professionals, but also key reforms and the plan of restoration and resilience of the Slovak Republic gives us the prospect of significant improvement of health condition in Slovakia in a few years.
Another theme was the vaccines against COVID-19, and the European Commissioner said that all EU countries had the same problem. However, as she pointed out, we also need to look to the future and be ready if the pandemic again would have been a udrela. Nevertheless, the EC is working on changes to the contracts with vaccine manufacturers that would allow countries more flexibility in contracting.
Commissioner S. Kyriakides: The pandemic is slowing down and the SR has a low incidence of cases, but the pandemic has not ended. It is very important that everyone realises that we have safe and effective vaccines within the EU and that anyone who can receive them is vaccinated. I would like to congratulate the Minister for ensuring that there are enough new vaccines against the current virus variants.
When informing about the implementation of the Recovery and Resilience Plan of the Slovak Republic, Euro-Commissioner praised the Ministry's ambitions in fulfilling its milestones, and also stated that it should not be forgotten about other funding opportunities for projects within the European Union. The Commissioner also said that 23% of the total funding went to health care, which shows the commitment of the Slovak Republic to devote considerable resources to improving healthcare.

In March 2023, the European Commission should present the expected pharmaceutical package under the EU Pharmaceutical Strategy, which will represent the most fundamental change in the EU farm policy since 2001. The aim of the upcoming farm package is to promote innovation, in particular in the area of unmet medical needs, to establish a balanced system for medicines in the EU to promote their affordability while rewarding innovation, to further provide patients with access to innovative and established medicines, with particular emphasis on increasing security of supply across the EU, as well as to reduce the environmental impact of the life cycle of pharmaceutical products and so on.
The next stop was the visit of the National Cancer Institute, in which the director of NOÚ Tomáš Alscher informed the delegation of his mission, medical procedures and methods, while the Euro Commissioner was also keenly interested in the stories of patients and some of them spoke personally. On this occasion, Minister Vladimír Lengvarský assured the European Commissioner of the adoption of the Council of Europe Recommendation on strengthening prevention through early detection, updating the current provisions and proposed wider scope of screening tests and protocols. In addition, the Recommendation proposes to extend screening programmes for cervical, breast and colon cancer to other target groups and to extend the screening to other types of cancer (lung, stomach and prostate) due to new evidence and technological innovation. The Slovak Republic wants to implement a pilot project for lung cancer screening and support other modern methods of early detection in order to reduce high mortality rates.
EU Commissioner for Health and Food Safety Stella Kyriakides: I would like to thank you for supporting this proposal and the efforts made by Slovakia to step up cancer screening in Slovakia and I would like to allow myself to send a message to all citizens, so that you do not delay and delay your screening deadlines. Two months ago, we came up with a new proposal for a screening exercise, which will also be presented to the European Parliament in December. I thank the SR for supporting this proposal.