The General Health Insurance Fund (VZP) estimates the cost of treating Ukrainian refugees at CZK 3.9 billion by the end of the year. However, most refugees have only registered in the VZP system so far.
By April, i.e., in the first two months since the beginning of Russia’s aggression, VZP had paid 150 million for the treatment of Ukrainians, said Tom Philipp, chairman of the VZP board of directors and MP for the KDU-ČSL.
The VZP registers 340,000 people from Ukraine, of whom 203,000 are of working age. 41,000 Ukrainians work and thus contribute to the health insurance system. However, these figures differ from the government’s last week, according to which 81,000 Ukrainians are working.
Although VZP is the largest health insurer in the country, it does not include all insured people, and the data is partial, not yet covering May and June.
Only one person here has drawn a sum of over one million crowns for treatment. It was a 12-year-old girl with bronchopneumonia, and bacterial pneumonia, whose treatment cost CZK 1.046 million. Viktoria Plívová, a spokeswoman for VZP, said that the highest costs were not for medicines but days of hospital treatment.
Two Ukrainians with hemophilia were also treated in the Czech Republic: a 35-year-old man whose treatment cost CZK 850 000 from health insurance and a fifteen-year-old boy whose treatment cost CZK 745 000 from health insurance.”Haemophilia is generally a costly diagnosis,” Philipp said.
A rare disease
Other diagnoses that cost more than half a million to treat (there were ten in total) included a fractured cervical vertebra, viral hepatitis C, and spinal muscular atrophy, for which a one-year-old Ukrainian girl is being treated in the Czech Republic.
“It is obvious that a relatively healthy population is coming to the Czech Republic from Ukraine. It’s not like someone is coming here to be systematically treated for a costly diagnosis,” Philipp said.
However, cardiologists and MP Věra Adámková (ANO) added that rare diseases such as cystic fibrosis, blood, and breast tumors are also found among Ukrainian patients. There are 221 such patients in the Czech Republic, and they are treated in special centers. The total cost of their treatment so far is CZK 11.5 million.
Most Ukrainian refugees who are not yet working in the Czech Republic are state insured, as are other unemployed people, children, prisoners, and women on maternity leave. The state now pays CZK 1,967 per month for them, but from August this year, the payment should return to last year’s level of CZK 1,487, with the government’s plan to automatically index the amount from next year.
Thousands more crowns for young celiacs
The VZP board of directors also approved an increase in allowances for children and students up to 26 years of age who have celiac disease, who will now receive CZK 8,000 a year (CZK 2,000 more than before) for a gluten-free diet from July.
The allowance for a low-protein diet for children and students suffering from rare inherited metabolic disorders will also increase by 2,000 yearly to 12,000. Philippe said the council decided because of the significant rise in food prices.az