Martin Vlachynsky

Recently publicized case of a child who was not reimbursed by his health insurance company for a requested medicine illustrates the broken world of medicine. Lots of regulations  and little market is supposed to protect patients, but it often works exactly the opposite. A three-year-old boy from Slovakia suffers from Dravet syndrome, a severe form of congenital epilepsy characterized by dozens of seizures each day.

Public healthcare should also work with priorities. What has more priority? Financial or geographical accessibility? Quality or quantity? What should be clearly free and, conversely, what is the Slovak patient-insured-consumer willing to pay for?

The term \"wage\" and its size are very important in national discussions about labor markets, taxes and insurance payments, but also part of international comparisons for investors deciding to build a factory or to place investments in a specific country. A lot of confusion has been created by the introduction of gross wage with arbitrary distinction between \"employee paid\" and \"employer paid\" taxes and contributions.

Similar to many post-socialistic economies in Europe, GHG emissions have significantly dropped in Slovakia since 1990. Slovak GHG emissions decreased by almost 40% between 1990-2000, and the decrease in emissions continued until 2015.

The pandemic period has not been kind to some patients\' relationship with health professionals. A period of information uncertainty, spawning hoaxes. The patient with their own opinion and their own information falls under a crooked gaze.

I dare to write that the health financing situation is becoming increasingly muddled. With all three health insurance companies (allegedly) starting to cut their losses, the problem of financing Slovak healthcare has moved up a notch. Of course, it is too early to be scared, but from a systemic point of view, any future financial problems of the health insurance companies would be much more serious than the financial problems of the hospitals.

The current social package worth more than a billion euro has definitively confirmed that Slovak government is going kamikaze in the area of public finances. After all, the money is \"lying on the pavement\".

The number of health professionals is a globally discussed issue. The WHO expects 18 million missing health professionals by 2030, mainly in lower- and middle-income countries. Two out of five active doctors in the United States will be 65 years of age or older in the next decade.

For Slovakia, in particular, as the extremely strong generation of \"Husák\'s children\"* does not have a sufficient population replacement and will start to put a major strain on the health and pension systems in the coming decades.

The famous Art Nouveau hotel Rónai, later Royal, later Slovan, is now a preserved ruin in the center of Slovak Piešťany. During socialism it was completely \"washed out\", like many other buildings that were either nationalized by socialism or built by socialism itself.