Where it is no will there is no data

Where it is no will there is no data

In mid-April a quarrel broke out between the Slovak Chamber of Nurses and Midwives and the Health Minister Andrea Kalavska over how big the shortage of nurses is in this country. The Chamber puts the number at around 15,000 based on data from the OECD, Slovak statistics and even an older analysis of the Health Ministry while Kalavska said in in a TV interview that the real figure is about 2,300 based on the calculations of the Ministry's analytical unit called the Institute of Health Policy. Its analysts have admitted that until last year Slovak authorities had not sent the data to the OECD according to the right methodology but instead included all nurses in the final number, even if some were not actively taking care of patients. And yes, those authorities include the Health Ministry. This is only one example that makes someone wonder about the quality of data based public policy making in Slovakia. Anca Dragu reports.

Data based policy Máte problém s prehrávaním? Nahláste nám chybu v prehrávači.



Anca Dragu, Photo: Flickr.com/Christian Colen

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