Latvian healthcare disaster, part 3

According to this article (Latvian, Google translation), Riga 1st hospital will be only able to treat 10 emergency patients per day:

According to the 2009 plan of VOAVA (the Latvian government agency that
contracts with hospitals), there will be money for treating 16,000 patients.
Since 14,070 patients have already been treated until July 15, this means that,
in the 169 days until the end of the year, the hospital can treat 11.6 patients
per day.

The healthcare tragedy gets worse every day.

Latvian healthcare disaster, continued

Here are two more newspaper stories on the healthcare disaster that is unfolding in Latvia:

• "Possible solution: government pays for only two days in hospital": Latvian, Google translation.
• "Cardiovascular surgeons: government's attitude will condemn 2000 people a year to death or disability": Latvian, Google translation.

To summarize the two articles, the Latvian hospital funding has been cut by 57%. P. Stradins Clinical University Hospital, one of two main hospitals in the country, has its funding cut by 75%. Hospital's chairman of the board, Arnolds Atis Veinbergs, says:

With this funding, we can provide emergency care until the end of September
or early October.

All government-funded planned non-emergency care has been suspended. Patients with tumors can no longer get tests whether the tumors are cancerous (unless they pay the entire price of the test themselves). Patients with major cardiovascular problems (such as aortic aneurysms, which have 90% chance of death if the aneurysm ruptures) can no longer get scheduled surgery that would fix their problem. Cardiovascular surgeons estimate that this would lead to 100 more people dying from aortic aneurysms and 2000 more people dying from other cardiovascular problems that could have been treated.

The healthcare cuts are going to have an extremely heavy toll. Couldn't our government find anything else to cut?

Latvian healthcare disaster

After the most recent round of budget cuts, which removed 25% of the healthcare funding for the 2nd half of 2009, our healthcare system is rapidly falling apart.

The hospital funding has been cut even worse and currently stands at 43% of the 1st half-year level. 29 local hospitals have been closed in April 2009 or will be closed in September 2009.

And, even the hospitals, which are not closing, are admitting only two categories of patients: people who pay for full cost of treatments themselves or patients who are in life-threatening condition. If someone can't pay, they have to wait until their disease deteriorates to a life-threatening stage.

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