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?