Prague- The Czech government agreed Tuesday to abolish health care fees for small children, seeking to soften the burden on patients introduced as part of a public finance reform in January.

Leaders of three coalition parties in the centre-right government of Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek hammered out a comprise late Monday to gradually abolish medicare fees for children up to the age of six.

The coalition leaders also agreed to lower the cap on some of the fees and medicine co-payments for children up to 15 from 5,000 koruny (314 dollars) to 3,000 koruny.

The government introduced a 30-koruny payment for doctor's visits and prescriptions and 60 koruny for hospital stays in a bid to curb demand for care and medicines.

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) says Czechs see their doctors more than anyone else in Europe - 13.2 visits per year, compared to the OECD average of 6.8 visits.

Cheap painkillers and medicines for colds are among most commonly prescribed drugs covered by the country's main public insurer, the General Health Insurance Company.

The new payments have been highly unpopular with Czechs, who had grown accustomed to free health care during the communist era, a right guaranteed by the country's post-communist constitution. The top Czech court however backed the fees as constitutional on May 28.

The introduction of fees for medical care has been unpopular elsewhere in central Europe. Similar reforms were rejected in formerly-communist Hungary and Slovakia.

But the former Eastern Bloc countries Bulgaria, Latvia, Estonia and Croatia successfully introduced direct health care payments after the fall of communism in 1989, according to Bratislava-based pro-fee Health Policy Institute.

In the Czech Republic, the charges have been attacked by the leftist opposition as well as by the junior parties in the ruling coalition, the Christian Democrats and Greens, who put pressure on Topolanek's dominant Civic Democrats to modify the system by exempting children, senior citizens and the disabled. (dpa)