Czech Minister of Health Adam Vojtěch has decided to resign after less than three years on the job. He told reporters today that he had already handed over his resignation to Prime Minister Andrej Babiš. He remains a Member of Parliament. With his resignation, he wants to create space for solving the coronavirus epidemic. The number of cases spiked in September, exceeding 3,000 a day on Thursday. The Minister admitted a few days ago that he should have insisted that the veils be worn inside again from the beginning of September.
“We have done everything to protect our citizens from the disease, and I dare say that we managed it very well in the first wave,” the Minister said. He is convinced that he has done his utmost to manage the epidemic. “I have nothing to be ashamed of,” he said. He wants to create space for “a new solution to the coronavirus epidemic that will continue to accompany us by leaving.
It will be handled by the Central Crisis Staff, which operated in the spring during the emergency. Since mid-August, the number of hospitalized and people who have died of COVID-19 has increased, and there have been over 500 since the beginning of the epidemic. However, experts point out that these increases corresponded to the epidemic state about two weeks ago. The current higher numbers of infected will only be reflected in the number of people in serious condition.
Vojtěch said at a morning press conference that several health care changes had been completed or started during his era. Among the things he managed to do in less than three years in office, he mentioned the start of electronic health care, reform of psychiatric care, or building a network of emergency admissions in hospitals.
According to him, it was also possible to stop the decline of nurses or restore the importance of the conciliation procedure between health insurance companies and individual health care segments. Funds from public health insurance are distributed.
The opposition has repeatedly called for the departure of the Minister of Health due to the failure to manage the epidemic.
Vojtěch thanked the Prime Minister for allowing him to run the Ministry of Health.
But Babiš has repeatedly criticized the Vojtech in recent months. Babis also said that the government has not dealt with the epidemic since May, but the responsibility lies with the Ministry of Health.