The Czech Government is considering plans to close redundant hospital wards, transform acute care hospitals into long-term facilities and fuse small hospitals.
Prime Minister Petr Necas said reform of the provision of bed healthcare was an indispensable step.
“We will have to check whether some of the hospitals that are part of a network of former district hospitals can be transformed into long-term care facilities, and whether we will have fully fledged hospitals with 15 posts of chief surgeons,” Necas told Czech television .
The government will also avoid buying expensive equipment for hospitals situated close to one another, as it was found that equipment was not fully used and their maintenance was expensive.
According to statistical data collected by the Institute of Health Information and Statistics, nearly one half of Czech hospitals were running at a financial loss in mid 2010.
