Specialist Doctor, Hospital Director and Professor. Who is the New Czech Health Minister?

At midday today, Thursday, October 28, the President of the Republic Miloš Zeman will appoint Jan Blatný as Minister of Health. Prime Minister Andrej Babiš will attend the ceremony.

The previous minister, Roman Prymula, agreed to resign as soon as his successor was found after the tabloid press took photos of him breaking Covid restrictions as he left a restaurant in Prague’s Vyšehrad late at night, clutching his wallet while not wearing a mask.

So who is the new Minister of Health?

Jan Blatný is a 50-year-old general medicine graduate of the Faculty of Medicine of Masaryk University in Brno. He later studied in the field of paediatrics at the same university, before being appointed as their associate professor of paediatrics in 2019.

Now, Jan is a Consultant Haematologist at the Department of Paediatric Haematology  Centre for Thrombosis and Haemostasis, and the deputy director of Haemophilia Comprehensive Care centre of the Children’s University Hospital Brno.  He is also an Associate Professor of Paediatrics at Masaryk University, Brno.

While paediatrics is concerned with the treatment of children, Dr. Blatný has focused on bleeding disorders in children, such as Thrombosis and Haemophilia, an inherited genetic disorder that impairs the body’s ability to make blood clots, meaning patients bleed heavily from even small cuts.

As such, he coordinates the Czech National Haemophilia Programme, an authority which manages and oversees haemophilia care in The Czech Republic. He is a member of multiple medical advisory groups and has authored or contributed to over 90 scientific papers and books, including ‘Social support and resilience in persons with severe haemophilia’.

Dr Blatny was named the President of the 2019 European Association for Haemophilia and Allied Disorders (EAHAD) Congress in Prague, for which he gave an interview.

He spoke of his love for the Czech Republic, especially walking in Jelení příkop (Deer’s Dike), through Saint Agnes Monastery and the lanes of Malá Strana (Lesser Quarter) before warming up with a dish of roasted pork or duck meat with cabbage/sauerkraut and dumplings, washed down with a beer.