Company press releases — Health and social

From Monday, November 2, to Sunday, November 15, 2026, all Lidl stores in the Czech Republic will host the 16th annual Heart for Children collection, supporting families with seriously ill children. Customers can buy a heart-shaped sticker for 30 CZK at the checkout, either taking it home or placing it on a board behind the till. Organizers have produced nine video reports on affected children, available at srdcedetem.cz and zivotdetem.cz.

On October 28, 2026, Czech President Petr Pavel awarded a Medal of Merit to Richard Smejkal, a volunteer with the Czech Red Cross. The nomination was proposed by Pirate Party MP Kateřina Demetrashvili. The ceremony took place on the national holiday marking the founding of Czechoslovakia.

The Srdce dětem (Children's Heart) charity collection runs in Lidl stores from November 2 to 15, marking its sixteenth year. The organization Život dětem is publishing nine stories of seriously ill children helped by the fund, including a six-year-old boy from Liberec diagnosed with Duchenne muscular dystrophy after repeated fevers and abnormal liver values.

The patient organization Voice of Oncology Patients (HOP) has launched the website www.svetloproledviny.cz, providing information on risks and symptoms of kidney and liver cancer. According to HOP, more than 3,100 new kidney cancer cases and about 900 liver cancer cases are diagnosed in Czechia each year, with incidence rising. The release does not specify the terms or date of the announced free screening.

BioLife has opened a blood plasma donation centre in Chomutov. It is located in the OC Central shopping centre on Žižkovo náměstí and is the company's twelfth collection point in the Czech Republic. Among the first donors was a volunteer firefighter who donates together with colleagues from his brigade. According to the company, plasma is used to make medicines for patients with, for example, immune disorders or haemophilia.

Survey findings: nearly a third of people have experienced an electric shock, and one case in ten involved a child. Over a fifth of households with children use no socket covers, almost a third leave appliances within children's reach, and one in five does not know how to put out a burning appliance.

The immediate psychological support line started operating today across the country. It offers professional help by phone to people from the age of fifteen who need it now and do not want to wait weeks for an appointment — in anxiety, personal crisis, burnout, overload or problems with addiction.

The release builds on a statistical office projection: about 871 thousand people over eighty by 2041, against 466 thousand at the start of 2023. To keep today's ratio of beds the state would have to build some 600 new care homes for about 80 billion. Today's ratio already falls short, with over 70 thousand unmet applications on record. The conclusion is that care must shift into people's homes and that some 35 thousand new home carers will be needed.

Around 140 patient organisations operate in the country; for people facing a serious diagnosis they are often the first place to find plain information and practical help, and they also take part in debates on how care is shaped. Their operating money is not secure. It depends on whether they succeed in grant calls and attract donations. The eleventh Summer School of the Academy of Patient Organisations took up the subject.