About us

The National Public Health and Medical Officer Service (NPHMOS) consists of the Office of the Chief Medical Officer, and the national institutes: the National Public Health Center, the National Center for Epidemiology, the Institute for Emergency Healthcare Supply Management, and the National Institute for Health Development.

The Office of the Chief Medical Officer (OCMO) functions as a central budgetary authority being a central agency under the direction of the Minister responsible for public health. OCMO has national competence within its scope of activities.

In order to fulfil the public health goals set out in the legislation, OCMO performs managing, coordinating and supervising activities related to public health (especially environmental and settlement health, food and nutritional health, child and young health, radiohygiene and chemical safety), epidemiology, health development (health protection, health education, health promotion), and public health administration, as well as supervision of healthcare provision; furthermore on the basis of delegated competence OCMO carries out tasks and duties relating to occupational health (workplace hygiene, occupational medicine), exercises and executes private law rights and duties in the field of occupational health.

OCMO is managed by the Chief Medical Officer. OCMO is responsible for the professional management of the national institutes.

The national institutes have national competence within their scope of activities. National institutes are managed by director-generals. National institutes are bodies of NPHMOS providing for professional-methodological, scientific research, training, professional development, registering, coordinating, and expert function and they also perform certain tasks of supervision over healthcare service providers.

In accordance with legal regulations and the deed of foundation, the Chief Medical Officer exercises professional management rights over NPHMOS; moreover he/she is involved in exercising powers granted to the Minister as professional manager over the government offices of the capital city and of the counties (hereinafter: government office) and the subregional (or district) offices acting in their public health function (hereinafter: subregional office).

The Government Offices of the capital city and of the counties coordinate and facilitate regional execution of governmental tasks in accordance with statutory provisions and the Government decisions. The Government Offices of the capital city and of the counties consist of several units led directly by the Administrative Government Commissioner, and they are structured in district and subregional offices. Subregional offices exercise their powers set out in the legislation independently.

The Government Office within its public health function performs tasks as defined in specific legislation:

· in the field of public health (food and nutritional health, environmental and settlement health, radiohygiene, health compliance of cosmetic products, chemical safety, child and young health, occupational health), in order to fulfil related tasks it may operate chemical, radiological or aerobiological test laboratories;

· in the field of epidemiology, in order to fulfil related tasks it may operate test laboratories;

· in the field of health development (health protection, health education, health promotion, organisation and coordination of public health screenings, health monitoring, including epidemiology of non-communicable diseases and health impact assessment);

· in the field of healthcare administration and coordination;

· tasks, delegated to its scope of activities by legal regulations, related to the supervision of healthcare service providers.

The Government Office participates in elaborating public health programmes aiming at health promotion of the population, and also directs, organises, and coordinates the implementation of these programmes.

The Subregional Government Office, in its area of competence, carries out all tasks of the healthcare administration body related to public health, public authority, and supervision, which are not delegated to the powers of another body of NPHMOS or another Government Office by legal regulation.