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Saturday, 27.04.2024, 07:00
Lithuania's statutory officers have no equal access to health care
The amount of compulsory health insurance contributions transferred to the CHIF for statutory officers in 2013 totalled LTL 92 million (EUR 26.6 million), the National Audit Office said.
Given the difficult and often dangerous work of officers, they are entitled to more free health care services (such as preventive health checks, consultations of specialist doctors, rehabilitation, etc.) than other residents. These health care services for officers are not covered from the CHIF but receive additional support from the state budget. About LTL 7.5 million (EUR 2.17 million) are allocated every year for this purpose to the Ministry of the Interior which is responsible for organising the provision of health care services to officers.
"The Ministry of the Interior has failed to ensure cost-efficient use of state budget funds for the health care of officers and equal access of these services to all officers in the country," said Auditor General Giedre Svediene.
According to the auditors, there is a lack of clear regulation of what health care services are to be financed from the state budget, so similar services in some cases are paid from the state budget and in other cases – from the CHIF. Prices of preventive health checks have not been fixed either. There is no procedure set for officers' rehabilitation paid from the state budget instead of the CHIF, so it is not clear what rehabilitation services (and under what diseases) should be supported from the state budget and what the rehabilitation procedure is.
The National Audit Office issued recommendations to the Government, Ministry of the Interior, and Ministry of Health to help ensure more cost-efficient use of state budget funds and more effective organisation of officers' health care.