Apart from these funds, additional money is to be provided by the ZZZS, the main fund for public healthcare services, under the planned fifth coronavirus crisis bill.

These will be distributed via annexes between the ZZZS and specialist healthcare concession holders and will only be available to the existing concession holders.

The budget funds designated for shortening waiting periods in the fifth coronavirus crisis act will meanwhile also be available to private healthcare providers which operate fully outside the public healthcare system.

The minister said that while details are yet to be worked out, the planned coronavirus crisis law would fund services facing the highest demand and requiring the longest waiting periods.

Responding to criticism that this would be a step toward privatisation of the public healthcare system, Gantar said that extensive privatisation was already taking place because people are paying a lot of money to see a doctor at the moment.

Under the planned rules, patients will be able to see free of charge a doctor they now have to pay, because the service will be paid for by the public healthcare insurer ZZZS, Gantar said. He is confident that this temporary measure will above all benefit patients.