By: Domen Mezeg / Nova24tv
“The future Minister of Health Bešič Loredan may have a sincere intention, but it will be very difficult to reconcile it with the written direction of the coalition, which is diametrically opposed to what he says and what he did as a doctor,” said Doctor Tina Bregant.
The most likely future Minister of Health and Deputy Prime Minister will be Danijel Bešič Loredan. On Tuesday, he was a guest in Odmevi show on RTVS with journalist Igor E. Bergant. As announced, he is expected to focus primarily on resolving the coronavirus problem, the lack of personal physicians and eliminating queues, as the situation is said to be completely unbearable now. It was stated in the show that patients wait for a specialist examination for six years, and for a personal examination for two weeks. There is even a subsequent shift in dates for operations, even for two years. It would be crucial to raise the salaries of therapists and physiotherapists, radiologists, laboratory workers and pharmacists who were omitted in the first set of negotiations with the government.
Long-term care will be placed under the auspices of one – the Ministry of Health, and systemic solutions include the abolition of supplementary health insurance and the complete separation of public and private health care. At the same time, it is planned to abolish the afternoon work of private doctors in a two-year period, which has already met with sharp reactions from young doctors. Ensuring better working conditions is key to keeping doctors in public institutions. It is also planned to establish the Office of Patients’ Rights, the Fund for Exceptional Cases, the regulation of mental health and the production of medical cannabis under the auspices of the state.
Regarding the autumn measures to contain the new coronavirus, Bešič Loredan said that if the autumn, like the ones from the previous two years, was repeated, the public health we had would be over. They plan to prepare an appropriate strategy throughout the summer. The goal is to place covid-19 treatment in the existing health care system and to treat all patients equally. At the beginning of September, a strategy will be presented, from which there will be no deviations and it will be led by the NIJZ, and above all it will not change from week to week. There will certainly be no compulsory vaccination, including for the elderly, but a more detailed strategy in this area will be presented later. They intend to take a positive approach to promotion, especially for at-risk groups.
The abolition of supplementary health insurance is planned
“Family doctors are already making suggestions that have never been fully considered, and now we will try to take them into account as much as possible through the intervention law, through measures. We are giving 500 million euros for this purpose in 18 months. Why? So that we can push the health care system to the ceiling, to see how much it can do, that all services will be paid for after realisation, that primary care physicians will have administrative assistance and treatment…” Regarding too long waiting times, he stressed the partial lack of money and poor and irrational management.
He could not disclose the details of the transformation of health insurance but said that in the next year and a half or two they will be looking for a system that could best be placed in the Slovenian health system. It is also crucial that they manage to raise 600 million euros and that they consequently abolish supplementary health insurance. At the same time, they intend to ensure the same working conditions in public institutions as in private ones. A doctor could work in the morning, in the afternoon, he would be paid the same. As a result, there will no longer be a need for a doctor to want to work outside a public institution. He also announced the merging of the social and health work of long-term care “under one roof”.
Do they think we are crazy? There is a huge discrepancy between the coalition agreement and the wishes of Bešič Loredan
SDS MP Jelka Godec commented: “Mr. Danijel Bešič Loredan is still a candidate for Minister of Health, not a Minister, although he appears in the media as if he were a Minister. His views and proposals in the field of health care will be assessed after the hearing at the competent working body in the National Assembly.” Tina Bregant, a specialist in paediatrics and physical and rehabilitation medicine and a former state secretary at the Ministry of Health, also presented her vision: “I do not know Mr. Bešič personally. However, I know that he is a doctor with experience gained both at home and abroad, and that years ago he even collected signatures for the resignation of Minister Milojka Kolar Celarc.”
“She was then proposing some laws that were quite harmful to doctors, including the Medical Practice Act, the Medical Service Act.” She also proposed the abolition of supplementary insurance, which was not successful. And, in fact, there is an interesting, even worrying discrepancy between what the future minister says personally and what he did as a doctor, and what was written into the coalition agreement by consensus of the parties. “It is this discrepancy that is unusual, in fact even worrying. Because this means the following: whether the coalition agreement is “Potempkin’s village” and is merely likable but completely irrelevant in terms of content, so the content will be worked out elsewhere. In the background is that real, deep, non-transparent state that holds power. One could even say that they think we are crazy and that it is a show for the public.”
Public health care will collapse, and young specialists will become precarious private workers
“Another possibility is that Mr. Bešič did not participate in the writing of the contract at all, or that he may not have read it in its final form.” Bregant even assumes that Bešič Loredan has a sincere intention, which will be difficult to reconcile with the written orientation of the coalition, which is diametrically opposed to what he says and what he did as a doctor. She also responded to the announcement of the abolition of supplementary health insurance. Bregant believes that half a billion euros is not a small amount of money and that a serious question arises as to where we will get this money if we abolish supplementary health insurance. Maybe through additional labour taxation? And if some are convinced that we do not need supplementary insurance, they are mistaken. Compulsory insurance shifted the share of services to supplementary insurance (around 2006). It began to happen that the one who was without supplementary insurance and landed in the hospital had to pay a considerable amount.
She also touched on the areas of work regulation in the public and private health sectors. The measures set out in the coalition agreement will lead to an outflow of the best, young specialists (not young doctors who are still learning because they cannot work anywhere other than public health), who will leave because of a higher salary (a lure that will take them out of public health) to private ones. Public health will be demolished, and supplementary insurance will be abolished. And for private individuals who own concessions, doctors will be employed as ordinary precarious workers, and private individuals will make a profit.
Covid has become an endemic: let the profession deal with it
And what is crucial is not problematised. And until that is problematised, it will lead us to the disintegration of public health. Regarding the “start of panic” and a different solution to the epidemic in the autumn than during the government of Janez Janša, she said that covid-19 has already become a disease at the level of influenza, colds (due to the omicron strain, vaccination, and morbidity), so it is right for the profession, NIJZ, to deal with it. We got an endemic form of the disease from the pandemic, and above all we have more than two years of experience, which changes the matter greatly.
“Let’s resist the path that leads us in the direction of the Soviet Union!”
Infectious disease specialist Federico Potočnik also presented his view of the situation: “We will judge the new government by its actions. So far, the only tangible product is the coalition agreement, which is most reminiscent of the rewritten programme of the Levica party.” As a citizen and as a doctor, Potočnik is disappointed that the vision of this extreme party is detrimental to Slovenian healthcare and society. Hope is brought by the candidate for minister Dr Bešič Loredan, although he fears his work will be regulated by coalition partners. The announced measures have in common that they reduce personal freedom and choice.
Banning afternoon work means less freedom in arranging employment. Raising taxes in practice means that the government will take more money from citizens and spend it on their own. Abolishing supplementary health insurance would erase the little choice the system still has. The centralisation of purchases and other services, however, is nothing more than the decision-making of the centre, and the rest of us become dependent on their instructions, which in no way strengthens personal responsibility and active citizenship. “Unfortunately, we are witnessing an attempt to take over health care completely, which the far left, which has barely reached the National Assembly, wants to carry out. I think it is the duty of all honest people to resist the path that leads us in the direction of the Soviet Union,” Potočnik added.