Slovenija (Slovenia)

Slovenija

Slovenija lies at the heart of central Europe, at the junction of important traffic routes from central Europe to the south-east, and from western Europe to the Pannonian lowlands.

Facts about Slovenija

Maribor is the second largest city in Slovenia. It is the economic, university, cultural and sports centre of the north-eastern part of the country. It is located by the river Drava, at the point of contact of five different regional units the Drava valley, important for traffic and energy, the Pohorje with livestock-rearing and tourism, the forests and farms of Kozjak, Slovenske gorice with its vineyards and orchards, and the arable Drava plain.

Government

Slovenia represents a parliamentary democratic republic, with bicameral parliament, consisting of National Assembly and National Council, with capital city Ljubljana and administrative division in 136 municipalities and 11 urban municipalities. Legal system is based on civil law system. Independence from former Yugoslavia was achieved on 25 June 1991. Slovenia is divided in nine historical and statistical regions without formal administrative regional governments. The procedure for establishment of two formal regions under European Union conditions is going on. Maribor is proposed to be the capital of new Slovenian NorthEast Region about covering half of Slovene population and half of it's territory with urban municipalities of Maribor, Celje, Ptuj, Murska Sobota, Novo mesto and Slovenj Gradec.

Economy

Slovenia exhibits one of the highest per capita GDPs of the transition economies of the region, fairly moderate inflation, and a comfortable level of international reserves. Slovenia received an invitation in 1997 to begin accession negotiations with the EU-a reflection of its sound economic footing. Slovenia must press on with privatization, enterprise restructuring, institution reform, and liberalization of financial markets, thereby creating conditions conducive to foreign investment and the maintenance of a stable tolar. Critical to the future success of the economy is the development of export sales in increasingly competitive international markets.

Health System

The main principles of public health system are equity and solidarity. Health care system is organised on primary, secondary and tertiary level. Primary level comprises basic health care and pharmacies, delivered in health care centres and pharmacies. The health care facilities are reachable within 20 km of any location. The secondary level comprises specialised out-patient services and hospitals. Tertiary care comprises advanced health treatment, research and education. Current government support and promote privatisation in health care, including hospitals, as well as voluntary health insurance. Health care financing is a combination of public (compulsory health insurance with practically universal coverage ) and private sources (voluntary health insurance and other private resources). In Slovenia 25 hospitals ensure in-patient care with 2,25 doctors per 1000 inhabitants. Total health care expenditure in year 2001 was 8.8% from GDP- 6.9% as public and 1.9 % as  private resources.

Population: 1,970,570

Regional Public Health Institute

Regional Public Health Institute in Maribor is the biggest regional institute of its kind in Slovenia covering a region of 380.000 inhabitants of the Region NorthEast Slovenia.  Institute has expertise in social medicine, hygiene, infectious disease and environmental health. Provided with the relevant laboratory support and facilities for field work it implements the national programme of public health and preventive health care. Centre of public health and health promotion represents coordination of national urban health excellence programme. It was established in 1998 by the merge of Centre of social medicine and organization of public health services and Centre Healthy City and consists of the Department of social medicine and the Projects department. It covers public health statistics, health analysis, epidemiology of non-infectious diseases and health education and implements the national programme of public health in the region. It also monitors the data related to the infrastructure of the public and private health care and forwards them to the National Public Health Institute, National statistical office as also to the Ministry of health. Project department caries out activities related to the World Health Organization project Healthy Cities. It is the seat of the Slovenian National healthy cities network and the presidency of EURONET - European association of WHO healthy cities national networks. It caries out activities in following projects Call for help - a telealarm system for elderly, the Centre for addiction and drug prevention, the project Education in public health and post-graduate courses in social medicine that is carried out in co-operation with the Medical faculties of the Universities Ljubljana and Maribor as also prepares round tables and forums on different subjects, seminars, workshops and local and international conferences on health promotion and environmental health. The department publishes their own professional material and translations of the WHO documents. Regional Centre of public health and health promotion coordinates Slovene activities in European Commission projects - DETOUR project, Interreg IIIC Health Cluster NET project, Getting evidence into practice II (GEP) and Urban health indicators project (URHIS).