The head of the Saeima Committee on Sustainable Development, who chaired yesterday's joint meeting of the committees on hospital reform, stated at the very beginning that the meeting should be completed within an hour, Latvijas Avīze reports.
He did not explain why such an important issue could not be discussed longer, as is usually the case when members of several committees participate in a meeting. In addition, he suggested that representatives of medical institutions and medical organizations send questions to the committee, after which they would be forwarded to the Ministry of Health, which would send the answers back to the committee, and it would discuss the questions and answers within a month.
The chairman of the Latvian Hospital Association, Evgeny Kaleis, could not contain his indignation, stating that the organization he leads had already done this by the time the informational report on the reform of the hospital network was presented for public discussion, and anyone interested could familiarize themselves with it on the government website. Many proposals and questions were raised by hospitals, ministries, and non-governmental organizations; many meetings were held on these issues, and now the deputies want to start the process over again. Most likely because they themselves have not read the report on the hospital reform adopted by the government, and the presentation by the representative of the Ministry of Health, Sanita Janka, was very general and reassuring: no hospital will be closed, everything will be done so that patients can go to where they will receive the best medical care, discussions will begin on the cooperation network model of hospitals, and the hospital funding model will be reviewed...
On behalf of the border municipalities, the chairman of the association of Balvi and Gulbene hospitals, head of the health committee of the Latvian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Margers Zeitmanis, stated that deputies should hear the concerns of the regions, rather than hide them behind the beautiful words of representatives of the Ministry of Health. He prepared a thorough data analysis that differed from the goals of the reform stated in Sanita Janka's presentation.
