When Slovakia's President, Mr Rudolf Schuster, was taken ill one night earlier this summer with a ruptured colon, he was rushed to the hospital nearest his residence in the centre of Bratislava.
After lengthy hammering on the door, a night porter announced that no treatment was available and the president was taken to two more hospitals before he underwent emergency surgery.
It was then his troubles started in earnest because, instead of improving his condition, the doctors appear to have made it worse and within a few days the president, who was now suffering from pneumonia, was given the last rites by a hospital chaplain.
It was not until he was moved to a clinic in the Austrian city of Innsbruck, at the suggestion of the Czech President, Mr Vaclav Havel, that Mr Schuster began to recover.
The president has now resumed his official duties, although he is still convalescing in Austria and he is expected to make a full recovery. But the incident reinforced Slovakia's image as a backward republic, the Cinderella state of Central Europe.
"It was a blow to our image but on the other hand it showed that there are no special privileges for the head of state or any other public figure," said Mr Jan Figel, who leads Slovakia's negotiations for joining the EU.
Unlike its neighbours in the region, who have been preparing for EU entry for the past four years, Slovakia only joined the accession process at the end of last year.
The man responsible for the delay was the former prime minister, Mr Vladimar Meciar, a crude, authoritarian populist whose regime was viewed from abroad as corrupt, unreliable and repressive.
Mr Meciar, who was questioned by police earlier this year in connection with the kidnapping during his period in office of the former president's son. One of the former prime minister's closest allies, the former head of the intelligence services, Mr Ivan Lexa, is currently on the run, possibly in the Caribbean.
While Mr Meciar was in power, relations between Slovakia and its neighbours in central Europe hit rock bottom and the EU turned its back on the gangster regime in Bratislava.
"We got into international isolation, we got into the red, we lost credibility. This legacy must be overcome by the current government," Mr Figel said.
Since its defeat of Mr Meciar two years ago, Prime Minister Mikulas Dzurinda's centre-left coalition has made impressive progress towards its goal of improving Slovakia's relationship with its neighbours and the West. Last month, Slovakia was invited to join the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and Bratislava is determined to join both the EU and NATO as soon as possible.
Relations with the Czech Republic are warmer than at any time since the "velvet divorce" that separated the two states in December 1992 and all outstanding property claims dating back to the Czechoslovak federation were resolved in May.
Meanwhile, the presence in Mr Dzurinda's government of a small party representing the Hungarian minority in Slovakia has helped to improve relations with Budapest.
"We have to build a united Europe in our region. That means not just being good friends in Brussels but with co-operation in the region too," Mr Figel said.
Slovakian officials are confident they can make up for lost time in EU negotiations and join at the same time as their neighbours in the Visegrad group of central European states. Mr Figel points out that, despite the legacy of the Meciar years, the Slovakian economy is doing relatively well in comparison with its neighbours.
"Slovakia is lagging behind the Czech Republic in GDP per capita in purchasing power parity, but we are comparable with Hungary and in front of Poland," he said.
Economic reforms and budget discipline have pushed up unemployment and caused wages to fall in real terms, however, and the government is trailing in opinion polls. Mr Meciar has not abandoned his ambition to regain power and submitted a 700,000-signature petition to the president this week calling for a referendum to bring the general election forward from 2002 to next year.
Mr Meciar's party is likely to win more votes than any other, but few other parties are willing to enter government with him and Mr Figel is confident there will be no return to the bad old days of international isolation.