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Czechs critical of work of their MEPs-poll ... Minister Tomas Julinek challenged FEMS's competence to assess the reform. "They are union activists...If they received false information from Czech union leaders, they of course warn about something that is not threatening," Julinek told CTK in reaction. Wetzel said FEMS was seriously concerned about the planned privatisation in Czech health care and feared that the quality of health care services would worsen. FEMS considers the planned health reform of the Czech government an untested experiment that goes against the European tradition of health care provided on the basis of solidarity. Wetzel warned about the sale of health insurance companies and teaching hospitals, saying the project was unprecedented in Europe. He pointed out that health care cannot be controlled only by market mechanisms as it is considered a service performed in public interest. Wetzel, who is French, recalled that the World Health Organisation (WHO) named France as the country with the best health care system. France developed such a system also by removing the competition between the public and private sectors and by keeping the responsibility for health care provision with the state, he said. As far as health care was concerned, FEMS trusted organisations of patients and health care personnel rather than politicians. Marian Kollar from the Slovak Unions Club warned the Czech Republic not to take the path of Slovakia that had big problems though it implemented only a part of the planned health care reform of the former right-wing government, including the privatisation of health insurance companies.
(Ceske Noviny)
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