Slovenian hospitals burdened with debts - owing money to the suppliers and hardly paying its employees – will receive additional EUR 136m in total by the end of the year from the state budget.

This amount will suffice for the hospitals to settle 80 per cent of financial losses and debt burdens. The government has pledged to raise the prices of health services. The first response from hospitals to proposed bill is reserved.

At the end of 2016, the total losses of Slovenian hospitals amounted to EUR 170m. The proposed intervention bill for financial rehabilitation of hospitals is a welcome measure but will not deal with the full scope of financial losses, warns the head of the Association of Health Institutions in Slovenia Metod Mezek.

Hospital representatives expect the government to raise the prices of health services. According to health minister Milojka Kolar Celarc, measures aimed at providing the healthcare budget with additional funds that will cover the service price increase will be prepared within the next two months.

Hospitals that will apply for this one-time financial aid, will need to prepare a plan of rehabilitation as well as its execution plan; the process of rehabilitation will be monitored by a rehabilitation committee from the Ministry of Health.

The rehabilitation committee will be able to make suggestions for the health minister to dismiss the hospital’s management board should the financial rehabilitation fail to be executed successfully.