It is said that no man ever steps in the same river twice. It's true, but you can swim in it for a long time even though the water around you is changing. The deputy Bohuslav Svoboda has been in the waters of the Prague City Hall for eight years. And he has decided to extend his pilgrimage again.
You are the leader of the ODS candidate list for the October municipal election, and let’s not disguise it, also a serious candidate for the post of Mayor. Was your decision to fight for the third time for the Prague Mayor's chair fast or did you hesitate?
The decision was certainly not quick. In particular, two things have decided. The first one was really great support in my own party, if there were any doubts, I would not stand for it. And the other was the consciousness that, during the time I was the mayor, we promoted and did a lot of good things. But at the same time, we had to drop many others. And then the time came when I noticed that this is going downhill with Prague.
Well, it is no secret that the current coalition at the Council is not really the strongest one.
The coalition works in such a way that the smaller ones blackmail the big ones and the big ones only care about their profit. So, it logically cannot work.
If you become the Mayor, then, of course, it will be crucial for you who do you want to cooperate with.
That’s for sure − who will be elected, who will be able to form a coalition and how strong - these are the key things. And it is not just about party affiliations but also about the quality of people. Indeed, it can be a person who does not deal with politics but is an IT professional, so he will take care of it. And when speaking about the Mayor - it's more complicated, because he is the first among equals, but he has exactly the same vote as anybody else. So, if he does not have enough authority, his job will be tremendously hard. And even harder if the coalition partner will be not communicating. Then it's bad.
What do you think Prague currently needs the most?
There are several things, but two of them are essential and priority. The first one is transportation, which includes a huge number of things, starting with the further improvement of the underground and parking issues. And the other is the development of Prague in terms of housing. This problem is very complex, because real estates are not being built very much, so the prices of apartments and properties generally have gone through a dizzying transformation. In addition, the construction must have some direction, it must be clear what is to be in the centre of Prague and what should be in its peripheral part. It must also be clear where the expansion of the Central Bohemian Region ends, because any enlargement brings more and more problems, especially in transport again. Personally, I think Prague has already reached its limits. Take into account how many people within Prague travel to work about an hour.
Let’s say it's after the election, you're at the city council, and you've been elected Mayor. Will you manage to lead Prague, be a deputy and do your medical practice at the same time?
If your prognosis is correct, then of course I will have to consider and analyse everything very thoroughly. Doubling the duties has its own benefits, but in many cases, it really leads to a lack of time. So yes, it would be time for decision-making and the conclusion will, among other things, depend on the power of ODS at the Council, and on what kind of Council Leadership I would manage to form.
Let's move to your profession now, the healthcare. Is it good, bad, on the rise or in crisis?
Healthcare is becoming more successful and better, but also more expensive. Lack of money is an endless problem. But that does not apply only to us, but elsewhere in the world. I am convinced that if we do not open other sources of money in health care, in addition to solidarity insurance which, by the way, was introduced by Otto von Bismarck in the second half of the 19th century, the healthcare will simply not work. I spoke with Minister Adam Vojtěch, for example, about the issues of supplementary private insurance. He confirmed that this government would not go this way. It is, in my opinion, because of the pressure of Social Democrats and Communists, who have everything built on social taxes and they that the supplementary insurance, would divide society into rich and poor. Well, I don’t think so, but even if it was true, then if you allow private insurance or supplementary insurance, who will take a profit? Of course, it will be the pour people, because the rich will not withdraw the money from the system, on the contrary, they will put the money in it. This is the principle of insurers - there must be someone who gives money and someone who takes them. But in this case, there would be more money deposited. And it is not about the question of healthcare, that someone would skip positions in the medical waiting list, this is not intended at all! And there are many things like that.
For example?
For example, when the former Social Democratic government has enforced that health care has to be paid as a whole, and nobody can make supplementary payments. And take an example: eye lenses - they are of different quality and already the basic ones covered by the insurance company guarantee the quality of vision. Or articular replacement. You can get it, you will walk with it, you can even ride a bicycle, but you will not play football with it. Even though, there is one type that allows it. My goodness, why it is not possible to pay the difference between what you want and what the insurance company offers to reimburse? Again, more money would come to the system. But unfortunately – now it is that either you take what the insurance company covers, or you pay something else for the whole. That's bad from my point of view.
There is not just a lack of money but also of people. Although it is related, but probably not completely... I wonder why hospitals do not somehow bind the present-day students, as is often the case in industry and apprentices?
They can do that. But let’s calculate, we start at zero, that is, when the student enters medicine. So, we have six years of study (if it does not interrupt or repeat), then he makes attestation, it's another four years. It’s ten years in the sum. It is said that there is a need to increase the number of physicians at faculties, so that in ten or more years we will have more doctors. But we need to face the crisis already now! Plus - where will the medicine be at the time? Will we really need so many doctors? Will not some work be done by robots? Evaluating the results of examinations, x-rays, analytic matters - all of this can develop rapidly.
But the immediate solution is about the money which we don’t have.
Correct. But when I take a district physician, there are things that could help. I have my father's old magazines Practical Doctor from the time of the First Republic (1918-1938). In the end, there was advertising where you could read: "The village of XY is looking for a practitioner. The position includes a villa and carriage." Of course, I do not cite exactly, however, the city, town or village has given some attractive benefit to the position. And this is necessary now. When it comes to a position that is unattractive, we need to do everything to make it attractive. Whether it's doctor’s office for one crown yearly, providing housing, or even that a job for spouse can also be found in the local area, or that the children will easily get to school. Of course, it depends on what options a particular municipality, city or region has.
Do you still do your medical practice?
Yes. I am employed as Head of Gynaecology Clinic in Střešovice. There you have to get the clinic running, operate when needed, and so on. Overall, I can say that I am spending two, two and a half days a week practicing medicine. And I certainly will not give it up. You know - when you sit on some high post, suddenly everyone starts talking how excellent and special you are. But when I'm in the office, the patient is not silent. She'll tell me directly what she thinks and so I have a real feedback. Furthermore, medicine is my opium, without which I cannot live, it is very important to me. I often have the feeling that it replaces the pastor. There are not many believers in the Czech Republic, but somewhere people need to talk about their pains, and not only the physical ones, but also the social and inner ones.
You’re 74, you sit in the Chamber, you stand for municipal elections, you do the medical practice - give me a recipe to be as fit in this age as you are.
My recipe definitely begins in the youth when I was doing top sport, so there started my good physical training that the body is used to. I was doing fencing, I was the captain of the national team, three times in the world championship, I was the eighteenth in the world. This is a very important foundation. Secondly, I am convinced that when you make meaningful work that you love, it keeps on charging you all the time. Well, the third thing is the family, that is genetics - my grandfather, after the communists had fired him from medical work, was a woodcutter even in his nineties.
So, you have medicine in your family as a tradition?
Yes, for three generations now. And, of course, it has become a profession that naturally belonged to Sunday lunch. We talked about various medical cases there. I remember when I was young, we sat once in the garden and had a dinner. The lady came with the boy who cut his leg. My father put his cutlery on the side and went to sew. My father was a practitioner, and my mom worked with him as a nurse in the office. Actually, my father started as a surgeon, only after we were born, we were three children, he went to do a practice to have a family background.
By the way, were you born in Prague?
Yes, in the maternity hospital on the corner of Žitná street. Later there was a Department of burn injuries, now I do not even know what there is.
So, as a native from Prague I wish you to become a Mayor of Prague, because it would be good to have native Prague Mayor after a long time.
Well yeah, you're really right (laughs). But I agree with you in the sense that people in the city's leadership should be people who really know it. For example, Mr. Hudeček, who was from Olomouc, was quite surprised during the floods that Prague does not only have the river of Vltava, but that even Botič flows through it. Prague is a beautiful and independent world and it is necessary to know it. It should not be different.
CV
Bohuslav Svoboda (born 8 February 1944 in Prague) is a deputy of the Chamber of Deputies of the Czech Republic for the ODS and a well-known gynaecologist and obstetrician. He is also a deputy of the City of Prague, formerly he was also the Mayor of Prague and President of the Czech Medical Chamber.
In 1967, he graduated from the Hygienic Faculty of Medicine of the Charles University. Then he joined the hospital in Příbram, from where he moved to the Gynaecology and Obstetrics Clinic of the FNKV (Faculty Hospital of Královské Vinohrady) and the 3rd Medical Faculty of Charles University in Prague after two years. There he remained in various positions until the present. In 1990 he held a post-graduate degree in gynaecology and obstetrics and he was also successful in the selection procedure for the Head of the clinic, he held the post until 2011. In 1990-1996 he was also a Vice-Dean of the 3rd Faculty of Medicine, in 2003-2010 he was a Dean there.
Since 1992, he has been President of the Czech Medical Chamber for six years. In addition, he served as the statutory representative of the director of the Faculty Hospital Královské Vinohrady and in 2003-2004 he was also the chairman of the Association of Deans of Medical Faculties. Since 2007, he has been a member of the Board of the Czech Medical Society of J. E. Purkyně and Chairman of the National Council for Medical Standards. Since 2010, he has been a member of the Accreditation Commission and Chairman of her permanent working group on medical disciplines.
He entered the ODS party in 2010 and as the leader of the Candidate list he was elected Mayor of the City of Prague. He worked there until 2013, when he was removed from office 2013. In the same year he was elected to the Chamber of Deputies, when he received the eighth highest number of preferential votes in the whole Czech Republic. Last year he defended his mandate.
He is married, has five children.
Opencard
The so-called "Opencard Causa" has been accompanying Bohuslav Svoboda for five years. The police blame him together with other Prague councillors for breaking the obligation in the management of foreign assets and infringement of the rules of economic competition. The Opencard project was created by Svoboda's predecessor on the post of Mayor, Pavel Bém. And the problem arose when the contract with the operating company was about to terminate. It was the time when Bohuslav Sloboda was already a Mayor. "Those who created Opencard had copyright. We had two options. Either stop it all, pay some penalties, start giving people paper tickets again and to throw out nearly a billion crowns that were already put in the project. Or negotiate a considerably better pricing and extend the contract for two years, while finding a different solution during that time. Both options were bad, and both were at risk of bringing some action. There was no third option. Until today, I'm still convinced that the option we chose was better. One expertise explicitly states that we have not enriched ourselves and no one has been harmed, vice versa, the city saved money. Nevertheless, the causa is still persisting after five years," says Bohuslav Svoboda. The latest update was in January this year when the police asked the Chamber of Commons for the release of Bohuslav Svoboda for criminal prosecution, but it was rejected in the vote (in 2014 it was approved, however, the case had not been completed by the next elections, so the police had to ask for permission again).
Alternative medicine
Bohuslav Svoboda avows he is a man of traditional medicine and he is completely sceptical about the alternative one. "I see it so that it should not be called as a medicine at all. Because it's not medicine. I'm very hard on this. " He does not say anything wrong to his patients when they say: "I have been taking a blueberry extract because it is said it's good for cancer." "Then eat, it’s ok. But on the other hand, it is not possible in the world of our knowledge to say that water can heal," he says unambiguously. He considers The Institute of Chinese Medicine, which originated in the Czech Republic, as a step in the wrong direction. "Chinese medicine has certain elements that can solve something. It's an old medicine that existed and disappeared. And Mao Tse-Tung resurrected it because he did not have a doctor, no one who could heal him. So Chinese medicine was resurrected as a way how to avoid admitting that there was no one to provide healthcare. Yes, for example, it has good tactics of relaxing. Acupuncture can help but cannot solve the cause of the disease."
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