Abstract
Schools in health care institutions have a tradition in this country for more than a century. In recent years, they have been moved from the Ministry of Education under the responsibility of regional authorities, and their structure, financing and even their existence itself is now decided about by regional officials.
Schools attached to hospitals perform the following functions: preventive, educational, counselling, and material; they cooperate with doctors, parents and teachers of children's original schools. The network of these schools, however, is becoming smaller due to unprofessional interventions: in the year 1990/1991 there were 274 such schools, in 2014 only 90 of them (80 primary schools at hospitals and 10 schools in sanatoriums and spas).
Our research in the National Register of Hospitalized people found that the average length of stay for hospitalized children and adolescents aged 5-14 years was only 3.5 days in the year 2014. This figure, however, is strongly influenced by only one-day and 2-7 days hospitalizations.
Nevertheless, nonprofessional officials conclude from the data that for such a short period it is not necessary to run a school or classes in hospital. The analysis showed that in recent years an average of 6,700 children and adolescents are hospitalized for 15 days or more, often repeatedly for respiratory diseases, mental and behavioural disorders, diseases of the nervous system, injuries and poisoning.
Teaching in hospital depends on the health state of the child and on the decision of the treating physician. Therefore individual teaching at the bedside prevails.
The existence of schools at health facilities is thus justified, as it facilitates the long-term sick children their return back to their original school.