Dvorak: Health Minister Offering Slogans, Not Solutions

Bratislava, 29 December (TASR) – Health Minister Kamil Sasko (Voice-SD) has promised a lot this year, but the outcome is only empty phrases and a marketing strategy, House health committee vice-chair Oskar Dvorak (Progressive Slovakia) has told TASR in his assessment of 2025 in Slovak health care. "He came to the ministry with three main priorities – to stabilise health-care workers, to use finances efficiently and data-driven decision-making, but real solutions have been absent for a second year now," said the opposition MP. Dvorak also criticised the presented human resources strategy, stressing that the document contains several absurd measures. "These include, for example, sending emails to schools to map interest in mentoring, with a deadline set as long as one year. And, according to the document, an analysis of the financing of secondary medical schools is due to last until 2035," he stated. Dvorak added that the strategy lacks any real steps to stop the exodus of young health-care workers. He also commented negatively on the so-called ambulance services tender. "Instead of patients, the money was supposed to go only to connected companies and party colleagues. Information about further preferential treatment kept emerging during the year," he said. The MP also criticised the work of Government Proxy for Investigating COVID-19 Pandemic Management Peter Kotlar. "Today the minister is even claiming that Kotlar's conspiracy theories are just one of the opinions in society. We know the results of the Slovak Academy of Sciences scientific study on vaccines thanks to scientists, not thanks to the ministry," he declared. Dvorak added that, in practice, Kotlar has real influence over developments in health care, as he's managed to block vaccine purchases as well as Slovakia's participation in drafting the World Health Organization pandemic agreement. Dvorak also said that Sasko has failed in the area of vaccination. "He didn't run a vaccination campaign, even though a hepatitis A outbreak has persisted in southern Slovakia for months. He ordered vaccines, but too late and far too few. And, although he claimed that everyone who wanted to would be vaccinated, people waited for COVID vaccine appointments for weeks in the middle of the viral season," he stated. mf/df