Fico: Roosevelt Hospital in Banska Bystrica to Become University Hospital

Banska Bystrica, 27 August (TASR) - A state-of-the-art European tertiary hospital providing all services a patient could expect will be set up in Banska Bystrica in the near future, Prime Minister Robert Fico (Smer-SD) announced in connection with a document approved by the government on Thursday under which F.D. Roosevelt Faculty Hospital in Banska Bystrica will be transformed into a university hospital. "The government's intention is to change the existing Faculty of Health Care of the Slovak Medical University (SZU) in Banska Bystrica into a fully-fledged medical faculty. The SZU Medical Faculty will be directly connected to the new hospital, which we will complete shortly," stressed Fico. Fico said the government's decision to transform the hospital into a university hospital entails many tasks, particularly for the health and education ministers. "They'll have to submit an implementation plan which will state exactly when this is going to happen, as these processes may take some time. The deadlines will be set by individual ministers," added Fico, expressing hope that the first students might start studying at the SZU Medical Faculty during the next academic year. According to him, the government needs to increase the number of doctors while achieving a better regional distribution of medical education facilities. Health Minister Kamil Sasko (Voice-SD) recalled that more than half a million euros will be invested directly into hospitals within Banska Bystrica region from government resources and the ministry's capital expenditures. "People don't care whether a hospital is a non-profit, state-owned, region-owned or private organisation. They care about the availability of doctors, specialists, and outpatient clinics, which are less accessible in Banska Bystrica region than in other parts of Slovakia. We have created a direct instrument to support the establishment of such clinics and incentivise healthcare professionals to remain in the region," stressed Sasko. As he noted, the data clearly show that Banska Bystrica region faces a major problem, particularly in attracting young doctors. "Establishing a top-class hospital here is not enough. We are going further; we want to build an integrated ecosystem here, with top-notch facilities for educating future doctors to be set up alongside the new state-of-the-art flagship hospital. A medical faculty is an important stabilising factor, particularly because it gives young people another opportunity and a reason to stay in Banska Bystrica, where they can study under the supervision of world-class specialists who provide top-level care at this hospital," stressed Sasko. He added that it's now up to the Health Ministry and the Education Ministry to draw up a concrete implementation plan. "We have set ourselves the goal of having all of this completed in the first half of next year," concluded Sasko. jrg