Latvia, Legislation, Markets and Companies, Medicine

So far many Rigans have voiced their objections to the planned shutdown of the Riga 1st and 2nd hospitals, but the reform also envisages changing the outpatient services – all the eleven clinics in Riga will be merged into one enterprise. At the moment, each of these eleven clinics receives state quotas, has a separate administration and accounting department.

"There is an idea to unite all the municipal clinics into one organization. Another option is to establish two ambulatory care organizations. The planned merger will be of legal, not geographic character," said Leonids Kurdjumovs, chairman of the Riga City Council's Social Affairs Committee. It would make it possible to cut administration costs and make the clinics' work more efficient, he added.

The final decision on the matter will be made by the Riga City Council.

Medical experts though are skeptical about the planned optimization. "Reduce administrative costs? When hospitals were merged into the Austrumu [Eastern] Hospital, the costs increased much more than they had originally planned," the Latvian General Practitioners' Association President Sarmite Veide told Telegraf. "I believe, the same will happen to the clinics," she said.