PM will not sack Emmerova

The Prime Minister Jiri Paroubek has said he will not give in to pressure to sack the health minister Milada Emmerova even if the government rejects her long-term concept for the health sector. Mr. Paroubek said that the concept was sound and that the health minister could not be blamed for the sector's present problems, primarily its indebtedness. At the beginning of the week hospitals, employee representatives, and employers in the health care sector, rejected her reform concept, which includes a debt bail-out of the Czech Republic's largest health insurance company. Mrs. Emmerova has so far ignored calls for her to resign.