Supreme Audit Office of the Slovak Republic

Bratislava, January 20, 2023 – Healthcare is an area that the Supreme Audit Office (SAO) focuses on in its audits and analytical activities. It repeatedly warns the competent authorities to problems, errors and failures in this area. A more comprehensive view of the current state of the healthcare system was brought by three audits last year focused on its electronicization, the fourth healthcare audit concerned the management of rescue services in Bratislava and Košice, which are the largest in Slovakia. All four audits have a common conclusion - the Ministry of Health is failing to manage strategic priorities and problems in public health are still pilling up. President Zuzana Čaputová, Speaker of the Parliament Boris Kollár and Acting Prime Minister Eduard Heger are drawn to the latest findings by the national authority for external audit in their regular quarterly report on conclusions from audit activities.

"Last year's audits showed that the Slovak healthcare system is failing in each of the areas of electronicization that the auditors looked at. Digitization is absolutely lagging behind, the necessary data for system management and financing are missing. Therefore, the audit office welcomes the fact that the minister has recently taken steps to start crisis management in the organization responsible for the digitization of the healthcare sector," emphasized the president of the SAO Ľubomír Andrassy.

In connection with the current situation in the ambulatory sector, the head of auditors states that the office already warned about the risks that it faces this year in the opinion on the draft state budget. "On the one hand, the competent authorities solved the situation in hospitals, on the other hand, they completely failed to notice significant risks in the ambulatory sector, the existential problems of district doctors, pediatricians and specialists caused by the high rate of inflation, the unprecedented increase in energy prices, but also the insufficient valorization of the point price for the provided medical service",

the head of the national auditors adds. At the same time, he adds that neither the government nor the national parliament responded to the material warnings of the national auditors. In the end, patients pay for it today, who, contrary to the constitution, have to pay various financial fees when visiting their doctors.

The full text of the press release about this issue in Slovak language is available here. Use the Google icon in the top bar for automatic translation.