More than half a million Czechs have no GP. Young people often neglect prevention

According to data from 2021, more than 4,500 general practitioners work in Czechia. Nationwide, there are on average around 1,800 adult patients per practice. According to the Ministry of Health, 554,000 people are not registered with a GP. Czechia is also facing a growing shortage of doctors.

Preventive check-ups with a GP are not compulsory. Even though Czechs are entitled to preventive care covered by health insurance, they are not exactly rushing to their GPs' surgeries.

"The main reason people neglect visits to their GP is the feeling that if you have no symptoms, you do not need to see a doctor. Most adult patients of working age come to the surgery because they need a certificate of medical fitness, for example for their employer. Other reasons for neglecting GP visits can be a bad experience or the idea of overcrowded waiting rooms," listed Martina Bábová, general practitioner at Venova Clinic.

There is also a smaller group of people who are afraid of their test results and prefer the "what you don't know can't hurt you" option. "Yet general practice is a fundamental pillar of healthcare, focused on prevention, diagnosis and long-term monitoring of overall health. The feeling that a preventive check-up is unnecessary if you feel healthy is a big mistake. Every doctor has experienced a patient arriving with an advanced and very hard-to-treat disease that could have been caught several years earlier," the doctor said.

In doctors' experience, it is mainly young people who neglect preventive check-ups. "After leaving their paediatrician, many young people do not look for a new adult GP straight away. That usually only happens when they have health problems. They can therefore be without a GP for several years. Around the age of forty, people usually start to take their health more seriously and no longer underestimate prevention," the doctor described.

According to surveys, a third of Czechs admit that they do not attend preventive check-ups with their GP regularly. "A healthy patient should see their GP once every two years. If the doctor finds even a small deviation, they set an earlier follow-up. The check-up includes a conversation with the patient and an update of their medical history, a blood test, a basic eye and hearing check, blood pressure and weight measurement and an ECG. The doctor also carries out a general physical examination. Preventive check-ups are followed by screening programmes aimed at detecting cancer early, when people do not yet have any symptoms," described Martina Bábová.

Venova Clinic is accepting new patients for its general practitioner. General practice services are fully covered by public health insurance.

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The availability of GPs varies greatly by region: while general practice care is usually easy to access in large cities, patients in smaller and border districts often face a shortage of doctors and longer waiting times. "In the coming years, we can expect the availability of general practice to get worse overall. Retirement of GPs has a big influence on this. Two years ago, the average age of a general practitioner was 55.6 years. Over the next 10 years, more than half of current GPs will retire. In terms of the age structure of GPs, the Ústí nad Labem, South Moravian and Plzeň regions are currently in the worst position," warned Anton Karalko, head physician at Venova Clinic.

The young generation of doctors does not promise an improvement either. The path to practising as a GP is long and demanding. "After six years of studying general medicine at a medical faculty, graduates face compulsory practice followed by specialist training in general practice, which takes three years on average. Only after successfully completing it with a board examination can a doctor become an independent GP. Young doctors therefore cannot replace the generation of GPs who are retiring fast enough," concluded Anton Karalko.