Czech regions to stop covering health fees as of November?

2009-09-07

The Czech interior minister Martin Pecina has written to local governors reminding them that the practice of covering health fees for patients is against the law. He vowed that the ministry would abolish the resolutions of regional assemblies authorising the policy, a decision that the regions must implement within 60 days (although they may appeal to the courts).
The intervention is doubly significant in that Pecina was nominated to the caretaker Fischer government by the Social Democrats (CSSD), the party that controls local governorships partly thanks to its popular opposition to the fees. This enabled CSSD to take control of all of the country’s 13 regions in local elections last year, and it was CSSD governors who refused to collect the fees and instead used regional budgets to cover them.
Several regions vowed to fight Pecina’s decision in the courts.
The fees – CZK 30 (€1.2) per a surgery visit, CZK 30 (€1.2) per prescription item and CZK 60 (€2.4) per day in hospital – were introduced by the previous government led by the Civic Democrats (ODS), which was fell in March.