PS Criticises Coalition for Not Correcting Error in E-Health Amendment

Bratislava, January 2 (TASR) - The opposition Progressive Slovakia (PS) party has pointed out that the error in the amendment to the law concerning electronic healthcare, which caused the ability to issue e-prescriptions for certain medications to expire at the start of the new year, has not yet been corrected, with MP Oskar Dvorak (PS) urging Health Minister Kamil Sasko (Voice-SD) to urgently inform the public on how and when the mistake will be fixed. "The coalition, through its chaotic law-making, has removed the ability of many patients to get prescriptions for medicines via e-prescriptions. To this day they have not come up with any solution, even though we warned them of the potential error in advance. Patients now have to travel unnecessarily to doctors, who are burdened with more unnecessary paperwork," he noted. Dvorak also commented on the situation regarding the agreement with the doctors, which according to him, is only temporary and hasn't been resolved ultimately. "If the government doesn't adopt several measures and reforms by the end of February, there is a risk of mass resignations of medical staff again," he noted. Dvorak also criticised the government for being inactive in other areas in the health sector. In December last year, the House approved an amendment to the National Health Information System Act, proposed by the Health Ministry. According to the amendment, electronic services would be modified and new ones should be created in the health care system. In this context, the opposition KDH warned that due to imprecise wording in the law, e-prescriptions won't be possible for some medicines. The ministry declared that it was trying to resolve the error so that there would be no need to issue paper prescriptions for medicines. lin/mcs