Sasko Plans to Join Dialogue with Health Personnel at Once

Bratislava, October 10 (TASR) - Newly-appointed Health Minister Kamil Sasko (Voice-SD) plans to join the dialogue with disgruntled health personnel straight away, with an eye towards seeking a compromise in the face of planned consolidation measures, TASR learnt on Thursday. Sasko said this after his appointment to the post in the Presidential Palace on the same day. "I consider it to be crucial to ensure that health workers remain in the system, so I'll immediately enter into negotiations in close communication with all the relevant players of the chambers and associations so that we find a compromise between the legitimate demands of health workers on the one hand and the need to recover public finances, to which I'm doubly committed," declared Sasko. The new minister's main goal is to make sure that patients have someone to care for them and that health care is a service for people, not a "business for the chosen few". "This is the basic philosophy I'll stick to. Quality and affordable health care must be accessible to all," he said, also announcing that he wants to work very hard on the issue of prevention. The new head of the ministry intends to look very closely at the financial flows in the sector. "I'll closely monitor and remove all the loopholes through which these resources often leak," he said, adding that his "red light is flashing the most" on health insurance companies. He announced that together with the Health-care Supervision Office (UDZS) they will look closely at the ways in which insurance companies manage peoples' money. Meanwhile, Sasko considers it to be important that his decisions are based on data, scientific facts and the principles of modern medicine. He therefore wants to surround himself with respected experts in the medical field. "I'll reject what is becoming more and more popular, which is a return to some kind of obscurantism and quackery or rejection of the general progress of medicine," declared the minister. am/mcs