Will UK Expats In The Czech Republic Be Left Without Free Healthcare?

British expatriates living and working in the Czech Republic may be at risk of losing their free healthcare, and it’s got little to do with Brexit.

An agreement which was signed between the UK and the Czech Republic as long ago as 1976 is likely to be dumped due to the fact that its financial burden has fallen unfairly on the republic ever since it became a member of the EU. The original agreement involved co-operation between the two countries on matters of medicine and health as well as guaranteeing free healthcare for UK citizens living and working in the Czech Republic.

Following the republic’s entry into the EU in 2004, the agreement was almost forgotten as it was no longer relevant, as urgent healthcare was mutually free. After the Brexit referendum and the UK’s exit from the EU at the end of last year, the agreement was brought into force again, spurring investigations into the comparative costs for each country. Unfortunately, an investigation into the balance between healthcare costs per patient in the UK and its equivalent in the Czech Republic revealed the republic was paying out far more to treat sick Brits than the UK was in treating their Czech counterparts.

Records showed that just under 4,000 UK expats were treated at a cost of 23 million CZK, whilst only 702 Czech expats in the UK were treated at a cost of just 3.5 million. As a result, the Czech government is studying the original agreement at the same time as negotiating Brexit matters with the UK. Should it decide to dump the agreement due to its one-sided nature, expats living and working in the republic after Brexit kicks in on 1st January next year may well find themselves in free healthcare-bereft limbo as well as unable to afford the republic’s private healthcare charges.