Estonia – a country, where the poor go to work sickThe government’s 2009 decision to cease paying compensation for the first three days of sick leave hit the hardest the low wage earners, who went to work sick – the amount of sick leave taken was suddenly halved. This emerges from the doctor’s paper Evelyn Aaviksoo recently defended in Tartu University.Health
Savisaar presents substantial medical historyThe newest chapter in Edgar Savisaar's defense tactics comes in the form of a voluminous medical history spanning decades his team has submitted for forensic medical examination. Analyzing the history will take months, keeping Savisaar's trial on hold.Local News
Hospital heads plead not guiltyFormer chairman of the board of the North Estonia Regional Hospital (PERH) Tõnis Allik, head of catering Anu Vähi, head of IT Marko Kilk, and caterer P. Dussmann Eesti OÜ and its executive manager Anella Stimmer stood trial at the Harju County Court on charges of corruption yesterday.Local News
Minister Ossinovski's controversial taskPeople who want to change their sex in Estonia must first ask permission from the health care minister. No one can start hormone treatment and undergo sex reassignment surgery without Jevgeni Ossinovski's signature today.Local News
Leading pharmaceutical company looking toward LithuaniaEstonia's largest pharmaceuticals manufacturer, generic veterinary drug maker Interchemie, has been fighting the State Agency of Medicines over sales permits for a long time and has now turned its gaze toward Lithuania.Economy
Seeing a doctor takes patienceHow to see a specialist doctor in Estonia? First of all one has to find out how major Estonian hospitals put together their time sheets. Secondly people have to instruct their family members to work as a team and bombard the hospital's registration desk with calls when it starts work on the morning of the right day.Health
Important Cancer Samples ExpiredThe mail service the Estonian Health Insurance Fund chose to deliver samples collected in a colorectal cancer screening turned out to be too slow. Family doctors, who have drawn the ire of patients, demand explanation from the fund.Health
Editorial: do kick into gear, Mr OssinovskiThe deficit in Health Insurance Fund is shocking and shows the politicians are in a bigger hurry with systemic changes than we were guessing. Also, the state budget hole is likely to be deeper than envisioned.Opinion
Health Insurance Fund in the red by €33mConvening to review first half year report, Estonia's Health Insurance Fund (HIF) is facing a budget deficit of €33m. They will fill the hole from the approximately €114m reserves of HIF but if the system continues the future is bleak as the fund is predicted to run out of the money in 2020.Local News
Editorial: scandals come and scandals go. Ideals not soToday, it's all eyes on Rio de Janeiro and the legendary Maracanã.Opinion
Father says son injured in Nice is doing betterSeverely injured in the truck attack in the French city of Nice, Hans Joosep is still in intensive care unit at the local hospital.Estonian news
Buying a bottle? Show the passportTest buys show identity documents are only asked of every second young buyer of alcohol. Still, outcome gladdens hearts of health activists by being better then before.Local News
New taxes sought to fill health insurance holeAccording to analysis by work group called by social ministry Health Insurance Fund would stay in the red for upcoming years due to demographic changes. To fill the void, money might be drawn from elsewhere in the budget. And option is introducing health taxes.Economy
Several diseases additionally spread by Estonia's ticksOf tick-borne diseases, Estonia has basic knowledge of viral encephalitis and Borrelia. Meanwhile, a small percentage of ticks also carry several less-known yet serious diseases.Health
Editorial: hiring people with reduced work capacity is step in right directionUnavoidably, Estonia's working age population is graying and shrinking. Some predictions say we will have a whopping 160,000 people less on labour market in just one generation.Opinion
On road towards smoke free prisons, fuelled by fruit and sudokuThis May, Estonian prisons entered a healthy living motivational programme to prepare inmates for November 1st when all prisons should be smoke free.Health
Alcohol consumption per resident declined by 7 pct in Estonia in 2015In Estonia 13.8 liters of absolute alcohol was consumed per adult resident in 2015, 7 percent less than in the year before, the annual overview of the Estonian Institute of Economic Research shows.Health
Old folks getting lost looking for a hospitalPlan by Health Insurance Fund (the Haigekassa) to bring bulk of medical specialists into a couple of big centres has raised the issue of how people from afar will make it there with private transport unavailable. Social ministry tells us this will have to be settled by local governments.Health
Dangerous gas appliances claim fresh victimsWednesday night at about 9:30 pm, Alarm Centre was notified of kids aged about 2 and 5 feeling bad at Kopli St, Northern Tallinn while they took their evening bath.Local News
Erring doctors deprived of right to work in FinlandDuring the past three years in Finland, 21 doctors from territory of former Soviet Union have been deprived of right to practice as physicians or subjected to restrictions. Of these, lion's share have passed their medical exams in Estonia.Health
Dozens of flights above a reactor in flames«I went there twice,» says a most unique liquidator of the nuclear catastrophe, the Lithuanian helicopter pilot Algirdas.Estonian news
Ukrainian gynaecologist to leave HiiumaaA gynaecologist from Ukraine is leaving after four months of working at Hiiumaa Hospital, not having acclimatized with the island and the islanders not acclimatizing with him. Doctors will continue to take turns and visit from mainland Estonia.Health
Emergency medicine may be empowered to send patients backUntil now, emergency medicine departments have helped all who show up, even if they have to wait for hours. Now, ideas are being pondered about how to scare some off right from the door.Health
Bus driver's health fails while at wheelDue to health failure suffered by driver, a passenger bus drove off the road at Kreutzwaldi and Gonsiori Streets intersection, Tallinn, at about 6:30 am yesterday. The sudden maneuver made three cars collide, mediates ERR news portal. Nobody was hurt in the accident, the bus driver was hospitalized.Local News
Editorial: careless careOne day it may happen. When it turns out a loved one needs constant care and support due to age or severe illness. Such is increasingly the case thus forcing us to take an ever more serious look at aging with dignity.Opinion
Elderly stuck in wards with mentally ill and dangerousDue to lapses in Estonian law, demented elderly and alcoholics find themselves sharing wards with aggressive and dangerous schizophrenics and the like.Local News
Address by Ambassadors of Finland, USA and UK: Estonia must get serious about its HIV epidemicToday, Ambassadors of the Uninet Kingdon, the United States of America and Finland filed an address to Constitutional Committee of the Parliament of Estonia wherein they call upon Estonia to at long last acknowledge the spread of the HIV epidemic and to create a select committee dedicated to solving the problem.Opinion
Restoring dental costs compensation considered The dental treatment compensation, abolished in 2009, may resurface next year in a new form so that health insurance fund pays dentists on basis of price list. The latter prefer compensation paid to patients to maximum fees imposed.Health
Editorial: sick leave – fight for freedom, cut it notHow do we arrange it so that days spent sick will spell as little loss to people and the economy? A think-thank thinks to know.Opinion
Temperature rising: eHealth heats upFreshly out of his job, Estonian eHealth Foundation head Raul Mill accuses social ministry in hammering on with a reform potentially in violation with law. The ministry thinks the only way to make eHealth work is grabbing the wheel.Health
Midwife catches measlesOf the three individuals infected with measles this past month was a midwife at East-Tallinn Central Hospital (ITK) who worked for several days at obstetrics department before diagnosed with the disease. The hospital called about 40 people for extra checks.Health
Editorial: do not judge vaccination according to rumoursThat a midwife happened to be among those infected by measles who afterwards came in contact with a total of about 40 colleagues and patients is bad coincidence indeed. Imagine the worries and tensions in the expecting mothers now called in to be examined. We wish them that all be well and result to analysis be swift in coming.Opinion
Editorial: the wrong end to start a reformState reform planned by government includes lay-off of 3,500 of public cadre by 2019. The main blow hits social ministry. While the promise is not to thin ranks of such as offer social and health care services, support staff in regional hospitals is faced with cuts. Among others things, the state wants Tartu University Hospital to send 85 people packing and outsource part of the work.Opinion
Hospital rebells at lay-off demand by the stateLast night, council of Tartu University Hospital members sent a standpoint to social ministry stating that the prescribed lay-off of 85 posts is neither purposeful, expedient nor feasible.Local News
It is getting better with the Estonian soulWith the men lost and not found lately, links have been drawn with troubled soul. Even so, heads of psychiatric clinics claim there's nothing out of the ordinary with receptions at their institutions this fall. Are mental problems popping up related to the seasons?Health
Slow pace of healtcare takes toll on patientsFresh OECD report says Estonian healthcare cannot keep pace with growing needs of people, as evidenced in payments percentage by patients approaching the critical limit.Health
Fresh eating directions less austereUntil now, healthy eaters had to meticulously count and calculate what and how much they could consume. They may loosen up now, somewhat.Health
Limits loom over chips and sweetsAs urged by the ever bulging Estonian waistline, the state is stepping in to shrink the spread obesity. An option considered is imposing limits to advertisements tempting children to consume chips and candy.Health
Editorial: no taboo topicsThe views expressed at Public Broadcasting (ERR) heads meeting that while discussing drug policy we should not give the floor to those favouring legalization of cannabis corresponds not to the balanced debate principle ERR should stand for. Understandably, the ERR leaders feel their responsibility. Understandably, the sense of responsibility contradicts ERR enhancing behaviour damaging to health. But this will not mean that a debate birthed in society may be limited to views of one side alone.Opinion
Producers boil over at alcohol policy «favouring Finland»The government's ever toughening alcohol policy not limited to excise rises but curbing ads and rearranging shelves at stores seems random and based on outdated research and unrelated data, possibly undermining Estonian exports.Economy
Booze to vanish from before buyer eyeIn near future, purchasing alcohol will grow much more complex – stores will have to erect nontransparent walls around alcohol departments, gas stations must stop selling tipple altogether, and local government get powers to ban sales of intoxicating drinks in eateries at certain hours.Local News
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