I am Brazilian, me and my wife have been working in the Czech Republic for almost 2.5 years now. 2 months before relocating to Brno our daughter has been diagnosed with Turner’s syndrome – a genetic disorder which can be substantially improved by growth hormone therapy.
We got a health insurance contract with Uniqa which specifically excluded all Turner-syndrome related health care and medication. When we asked PVZP to calculate the price of the PVZP Exclusive – the only commercial health insurance on the market that actually covers pre-existing conditions and has no limits for prescribed medication – they informed us, that the insurance premium per year in our case will be close to the overall insurance limit of 1 800 000 czk, and we should pay the money upfront.
We managed to bring 2 packs of the growth hormone medicine from Brazil (there the medicine for my daughter was paid by the state), but that was barely enough for 3 months of therapy. Here the medicine alone costs us around 24 000 czk/month and we absolutely can’t stop the treatment as the quality of my daughter’s life is at stake. We tried to arrange shipping the medicine from Brazil – the first and the last shipment was seized by the Czech customs officers, who didn’t let it through claiming it was violating the EU import laws.
Besides hormone therapy my daughter needs regular checkups with a variety of health care specialists – all that we are also paying out of the pocket as it is not covered by the health insurance.