ing to the related law, health insurance companies have to pay invoices to pharmacies for medicines and other medical material within one month of the invoicing of the received prescriptions. „The reality is that health insurers do not fulfill this duty,“ the chamber writes in its letter. The rising debt of health insurers towards private pharmacies deepens the insolvency of pharmacy owners and increases their indebtedness towards suppliers of medicines and medical materials. Some insurers have not paid for drugs provided to their clients for seven months. This negative development seriously jeopardizes the availability of medicines to patients while the financial crisis of pharmacies directly jeopardizes the supplying of the citizenry with medicines. The chamber elaborates that all talks held since February 1998 with representatives of the ministries of health care and finance, health insurers, and the Slovak Cabinet Office failed. Except empty promises, they brought no results, the chamber writes. The chamber spokesman, Jozef Blahovec, told SITA last week that the supply of medicines, for example, in the Trencin district, will cover only one month. If the situation does not improve, the district will be hit by acute shortage of drugs within the next few weeks. In Blahovecs opinion, the whole situation requires a subsidy from the Slovak Cabinet.