President Miloš Zeman will appoint Jan Blatný, the Deputy Director of the University Hospital in Brno, as Minister of Health on Thursday at noon. He will replace the current Minister Roman Prymula.
Thursday’s ceremony will take place in Masaryk’s office at the chateau in Lány, with Prime Minister Andrej Babiš.
The new minister is a doctor who specializes in pediatric hematology. He is currently the medical deputy for the children’s hospital in the Brno University Hospital.
Prymula must finish at the head of the Ministry of Health after the publication of photographs of the daily Blesk, which shows him coming out of a closed restaurant at night and getting into a company car without a veil. He met with the chairman of the ANO parliamentary group, Jaroslav Faltýnek, and Jiří Havrlant, director of the Ostrava University Hospital.
Restaurants must be closed for guests due to the spread of coronavirus. They can only have a dispensing window open until 20:00. Prime Minister Andrej Babiš, therefore, called on the minister to resign on Friday. Prymula stated that he had not violated the government order and refused to resign. The prime minister then proposed Prymil’s dismissal. Ovčáček did not specify when Prymula would be removed from the office.
Prymula was appointed Minister on September 21. He replaced Adam Vojtěch, who announced his resignation on the same morning. The head of the Ministry of Health will be 39 days. Zeman should award him a state award on Wednesday evening for coping with the spring wave of coronavirus.