Latvian parliament risks missing university hospital law vote

Latvia’s 14th Saeima risks failing to adopt a law that would create a new management model for the country’s three clinical university hospitals, LSM reported. The proposed changes include a single board for all three hospitals, improved access to medical services and protection against funding shortfalls.

The law would also require the state to pay for all work carried out by the hospitals rather than setting treatment quotas. However, there is no clarity on where the additional funding needed after the law takes effect would come from.

Andris Bērziņš, chairman of the Saeima Social and Labour Affairs Committee, said the hospitals’ operations would change significantly because they would no longer be state-owned companies but would instead operate under the Health Ministry.

Stradiņš Hospital’s Cardiology Centre head and University of Latvia professor Andrejs Ērglis said the three institutions would become university hospitals in substance only after the Clinical University Hospitals Law was adopted. He said their role in training future doctors was particularly important.

Asked whether patients would see improvements after the law came into force, Ērglis said the aim was to improve the quality of medicine and, as a result, patients’ interests.

“For example, they are currently state-owned companies. Why do hospitals remain in debt? They remain in debt because quotas are imposed on them, such as requiring them to treat 20 people when they actually admit, say, 30. Of course, that creates losses in the budget,” Bērziņš said.

The legislation has also prompted disagreements in the parliamentary committee over the proposed single board and who should serve on it. The trade union representing hospital workers has stressed that higher funding is necessary to provide quality medical care.

The Children’s Hospital, Stradiņš Hospital and Eastern Hospital already use the title “clinical university hospital”.