The Ministry of Health held an initial meeting yesterday afternoon of Vice-Presidents of the Unity of Pensioners in Slovakia, Valéria Pokorná, Alojz Luknár and Michal Borša with head of the Department of Health in composition: State Secretary of the Slovak Republic Lenka Dunajová Družkovská, appointed general director of the Health Section Peter Čvapek, general director of the Department of Pharmacy and Drug Policy Peter Polák and other representatives.
The meeting focused on topics that are most interested not only members of the Unity, but all pensioners in the Slovak Republic, including in connection with the petition sent to the National Council of the Slovak Republic. In it, among other things, they demand an increase in the state contribution to rehabilitation and treatment stays in the spa from 50 to 100 €, as well as the approval of zero supplements for medicines for each senior, for all medicines, not only for the cheapest generics. Representatives of pensioners were also interested in the Recovery and Resilience Plan of the Slovak Republic - especially its options in improving the situation in the home care of sick people as well as in the subject of mental health.
Valéria Pokorná, Vice-President of the JDS, Member of the Bureau: We are pleased that this meeting has taken place. In addition to providing important information, we were also assured that such meetings would take place on a regular basis, as there is a mutual interest in solving the problems of elderly people in healthcare.
The Department's representatives explained the activities of the Ministry in detail on the topics discussed; for example, the benefits of the amendment to Law 363/2011 of the Act on the scope and conditions for reimbursement of medicines, medical devices and dietetic foods based on public health insurance, which entered into force on 1 August 2022.
The health department has pushed through the drug reform precisely to make it easier for Slovak patients to access modern innovative medicines and to access the treatment options available to patients in other European countries. The amendment of the law has succeeded in adjusting the so-called threshold to be met in order to be evaluated as cost-effective. The amendment introduces changes in payment terms not only for innovative medicines, but also for two other categories, for medicines for major diseases and for orphan medicines. For each of these groups, the threshold is increased, which will again increase the availability of treatment for Slovak patients.
Improving care for elderly people is expected by the health sector and the general public also from the approved amendment of Law No 576 on health care, health care services in the current version, which, in addition to the introduction of "goods" in the relevant terms, has added, for example, the activities of social assistance facilities as well as nursing care as follow-up healthcare and long-term nursing care.
A significant move forward should also be provided by the Recovery and Resilience Plan of the Slovak Republic, which allocates funds for extending and restoring the capacity of follow-up care and nursing with soon published challenges: Extension and renewal of home nursing care, including the establishment of new 11 ADOS and the re-equipment of 80 existing ADOS, as well as the challenge of creating post-care beds by reconstructing existing acute and chronic beds - the creation of new 650 post-care beds. The Recovery and Resilience Plan will also provide funding for the expansion and renewal of palliative care capacities under the challenge of:
Extension and renewal of residential palliative care (270 beds) as well as challenges: Extension and renewal of mobile hospice network - material and technical support for 26 mobile hospices.
Representatives of the Unity of Pensioners in Slovakia were also interested in mental health issues and they were assured that in this respect too, the Ministry wants to ensure a fundamental shift in investment from the Plan of Restoration and Resilience of the Slovak Republic in the form of human, modern and accessible mental health care by building psychosocial centers, by adding a network of psychiatric staff, by building specialized centres for autistic spectrum disorders or by renovating hundreds of beds in constitutional psychiatric institutions.
Lenka Dunajová Družkovská, State Secretary of the MZ SR, stressed in her final words the need for mutual exchange of important information between guests and representatives of the resort and thanked the Unity of Retirement in Slovakia for their active, constructive approach to the topics or requirements that they had, as well as for significant assistance in spreading and communicating information on the need for vaccination against COVID-19 as the only effective protection against the difficult course of the disease, precisely among the risky citizens. At the same time, the guests assured that the health sector would take all necessary steps to ensure that healthcare, especially for elderly and sick people, was not only not compromised but rather improved significantly in the foreseeable future.