Closed pediatrics|Photo: Petr Kubát, Czech Radio
According to the Czech Institute of Health Information and Statistics, there could now be as many as 182,000 children without designated care in Czechia. Furthermore, many of the children who do have doctors may not have them for long, as half of all paediatric general practitioners are of retirement age. What senior doctors need is the money to bring a successor into their practice, but the Ministry of Health sometimes does not grant the necessary funds to attract a new paediatrician to Czechia’s smaller and more remote municipalities.
In Kraslice, a town of 6,500 inhabitants in the Karlovy Vary Region, its mayor Jan Šimek shares his concerns about the situation:
“We really have a ticking time bomb here. We only have one paediatrician here and he’s seventy-five.”
Parents in Kraslice have to take young patients to the emergency room of the Karlovy Vary hospital, forty kilometres away.
In general, less populous and more remote municipalities are not such an attractive opportunity for junior paediatricians. However, even when new doctors want to set themselves up to train and work in areas affected by the shortage, a lack of state support can impede the process. Subsidies from the Ministry of Health are sought by applicants, but sometimes not delivered, with the money going instead to larger hospitals. Senior paediatrician Ilona Hülleová comments:
“As chairwoman of the Association of Children’s General Practitioners, I have received several complaints. I would say it has concerned primarily the Vysočina Region, but it also comes from the Olomouc and Ústí nad Labem Regions.”
Vlastimil Válek|Photo: René Volfík, iROZHLAS.cz
The Minister of Health Vlastimil Válek has defended himself, saying that the ministry has no direct influence on the distribution of subsidies, which are made instead by an accreditation committee composed of experts. However, according to Tom Phillipp, former Deputy Minister of Health, the accreditation committee is only an advisory body, while the ministry must always have the final say. Olga Laaksonen, who leads the subsidies and education department at the ministry, also confirmed that the committee only has a supporting role:
“The accreditation committee’s output is really only recommendatory, the decision is really up to the ministry.”
Minister Válek has promised that the rules for allocating subsidies for training and hiring young doctors will change this year, as well as giving the regions more say in the process.