Minister of Health Kamil Šaško (Hlas-SD) dismissed Daniel Kuba from the position of director of the National Transplantation Organization (NTO) on Monday. He appointed Katarína Vadkertiová to lead the organization, who will lead the institution to the selection process. TASR was informed about this by the communication department of the Slovak Ministry of Health.
“This is a professional nomination by the Minister of Health, who instructed the newly appointed director to exercise maximum prudence in supervising the process and approving any exports of genetic materials until the ongoing supervision is properly evaluated,” the ministry said.
According to the Ministry of Health, Vadkertiová is a graduate of the Faculty of Education of the University of Konstantin Filozof in Nitra. Subsequently, she completed MBA and MPH postgraduate studies at the Warsaw University of Management. “He has extensive experience in the field of pharmaceutical company management, EU projects, methodology and consulting activities,” zoomed in on the department.
In October, MP Vladimíra Marcinková (SaS) pointed out the problem with umbilical cord blood donation, which, according to her, should have become an object of business. Collections are provided by the Slovak Register of Placental Hematopoietic Cells, which is part of the Cord Blood Center Group. According to Marcinková, the company trades in blood abroad. The director of the register, Zohda Hamid, objected to the “negative campaign”. It speaks of a targeted effort to discredit.
Deputies last week in the NTO as part of the survey they discovered several things that are not in accordance with the law. According to Marcinková, supervision over the export of umbilical cord blood from Slovakia is failing. Member of Parliament Lucia Plaváková (PS) pointed out that Kuba approved the export of blood for the company where he served on the board of directors. The NTO declared that it does not agree that its activities would violate the law. Šaško said in the parliament last week that director Kubu had a confirmed conflict of interest. Therefore, he had documents prepared for the accelerated replacement of the statutory body of the organization.
