The nationwide testing in Slovakia has been organised very quickly, and from the beginning has not been communicated to the public properly. No one exactly knew when it would take place and what the conditions would be, but Chemosvit was convinced that it would organise the testing on its own.
Thanks to the cooperation with the Ministry of Economy and the Ministry of Defence, COVID-19 testing at Chemosvit was successful. Our intention was to eliminate the weaknesses of testing. In particular, it was the safety of large numbers of people who should gather in one place and make it easier for the virus to spread.
During the first round of testing, 3039 people were tested on Friday (1559), Saturday (1242), and Sunday (238). The positive cases amounted to 1.54%. 3481 people were tested during the second round of testing. It took place on Friday (2457) and Saturday (1024). 0.74% of tests came back positive.
The added value of this testing was that family members of our employees and former employees could also come. In this situation, too, we wanted to continue the tradition of Chemosvit, the social, fair and above-standard approach to employees, which includes the social responsibility of the company in the region.
Thanks to good organisational preparation for testing – providing premises and staff, the assistance of the pre-press department in preparation of information posters, but especially good process design and information support, we were able to increase the speed of data processing, and thus speed up the whole process.
Waiting time, even with such a large number of people tested, was up to thirty minutes. Safety was guaranteed by our employees and our own fire brigade, and professional care was provided by doctors and nurses from the Military Hospital Ružomberok.
The Chairman of the board of Directors and Managing Director of the Chemosvit Group, Jaroslav Mervart, received an acknowledgement from the Ministry of Defense for successfully managing the testing at the Chemosvit premises. It read as follows:
“Dear Mr Mervart,
Allow me to address you after the nationwide COVID-19 testing of the population of the Slovak Republic. In this way, I would like to thank you for taking part in the “Joint Responsibility” operation. By this, you have helped to prevent the exponential spread of positive cases of COVID-19. It was a test which, thanks to the cooperation with you, the employers, we passed with flying colours. I appreciate all the efforts you have invested in testing your employees and their families. With this step, you have undoubtedly made a significant contribution to relieving public testing sites.
I realise that not everything has gone smoothly in preparation for this operation. A great deal of information reached you partially and gradually. We had to deal with some information on the fly. However, we have always made an effort to find solutions that would help our common cause. I believe that the testing in your company was successful and in line with your expectations. If any problems occurred, allow me to express my sincere apologies to you on behalf of the Ministry of Defense of the Slovak Republic.
I will be happy to be able to build on this cooperation in the future to strengthen relations between the government and economic sectors of our country.
Yours sincerely
Marian Majer
State Secretary”
