Minister Stresses Investment in Clinics as Main Achievement
Health Minister Zofija Mazej Kukovic highlighted on Wednesday as the biggest achievements of her one-year term the progress made in the investment into the new Pediatric Clinic and the Neurological Clinic. She believes that the main priority for the next term should be reducing waiting lines in hospitals and clinics.
According to Mazej Kukovic, another achievement is that "we managed to organise the ministry as a functioning institution which creates health care policy. The ministry was so weak that every local institute or insurance company had more influence on health care policy than the ministry itself."
Regarding investment in health, the minister said that the area was one of the toughest nuts to crack, as it required expertise in various fields. The team at the ministry has to be well organised in order to be up to the task in talks with contractors, she said.
She believes that the ministry has made an important progress in public tenders. However, there is still much to be done in this area, in which more or less the same suppliers and contractors, which hold the ministry in their grip, take turns, she said.
During the one-year term of the minister, who took over the ministry last September from Andrej Brucan, the parliament passed seven laws drafted by the ministry and the resolution on the national plan for health care through 2013. The minister highlighted the mental health act, which received absolute support in the parliament.
She also emphasised negotiations with the trade union of doctors and dentists (FIDES) for a wage deal, and added that the ministry had issued in this term 150 licenses for specialist practitioners and 183 licenses for general practitioners.
According to Mazej Kukovic, the works on the new Pediatric Clinic will be finished by 15 August, while the Neurological Clinic is expected to be moved to a new building next spring.
Regarding the construction of a new emergency ward in Ljubljana, the minister said that it would be better if the project was stopped and started all over. There are many difficulties, which are a consequence of the fact that the project was planned as a greenfield investment, but in reality the ward is being build as an extension to the current building, she said.
Mazej Kukovic also stressed that the ministry now published on its website data on waiting lines for individual treatments. However, regulating the issue will be an important task which should be carried out in the next term, said the minister.
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