The Medúza show was an absolute phenomenon. There was also the hit parade of Czech Television, which was first broadcast on Saturday mornings, later every Wednesday afternoon.
Ales Juchelka he was filming with a singer then Richard Krajč. At the beginning, however, the pioneering Czech Television project used computer animation without moderators. Since 1994, Medúza has been broadcast as part of the Mini-maxi program. And although 1996 marked the end for a number of other magazines, Medúza remained in the program for a few more years and became the basis for a new era of popular music shows.
He ran away into politics
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Juchelka is a graduate of engineering studies in economics at VŠB-TU Ostrava. He started his media career in the media environment. For example in Radio Time or in Czech Radiofrom where he moved to Czech Television in 1998. In the same year, he also started a business and was involved in production, media and PR.
He held a wide range of roles at ČT, from moderator to dramaturg and screenwriter. The audience remembers him especially from the musical Medúza, which he performed for over ten years, but also from projects such as Exit 316 or Ta naše povaha česká. Later, he founded a production company that also engaged in agency activities.
In 2010, however, he entered politics and became a representative of the statutory city of Ostrava, also chairman of the control committee. Seven years later, he became an MP.
The path to a ministerial post
In the House of Representatives, he deals with social issues and the media, and from the beginning he was also a member of the Standing Committee for Family and Equal Opportunities, the Committee for Social Policy and the Electoral Committee. From 2024, he is the Deputy Speaker of the Chamber of Deputies.
Since December 2025, he has been the Minister of Labor and Social Affairs in the third government of Andrej Babiš. He took over the office from his predecessor, Marian Jurečka. “I am looking forward to cooperation within the tripartite framework, with social partners, professional organizations, regions and municipalities. Today I feel a great honor, but above all a responsibility. I want to do honest, human and transparent work that will lead to real improvements in people’s lives,” he said of his position.
A lifetime of sadness
He is married to his wife Teresa, with whom he has three children. The youngest son, Oliver, developed normally until he was almost four years old. Compared to his siblings, however, he was abnormally hyperactive, sleepless and difficult to manage. It was 2010 when doctors discovered that he was seriously ill. “He was urinating, hyperactive and hard of hearing. Only at the age of four, after many long examinations, we learned the terrible diagnosis that it was incurable,” Juchelka recalled in one of the interviews.
“They called from the university hospital in Ostrava and said such a long name – mucopolysaccharidosis type III. And they immediately informed us that they had made an appointment for us at the hospital in Prague, where we have to go. There they told us that Oliver would stop walking, stop talking and that he would die… And they sent us home again. For two years we were not able to talk about it,” Juchelka spoke at the time on Czech TV’s program 13. Komnata. The doctors did not lie to the couple, within four years the cheerful boy became a bedridden child with severe epilepsy and the condition rapidly worsened.
An incurable genetic disease
The diagnosis Juchelka is talking about is Sanfilippo syndrome. It is a very rare, incurable and progressive genetic disease. It is often nicknamed “childish dementia” because its course is similar to Alzheimer’s disease in adults, but it manifests itself in children. The child’s body lacks a certain enzyme that is necessary to break down sugar called heparan sulphat. Instead of decomposition, it is stored in cells (especially in the brain and central nervous system) and gradually damages them irreversibly.
Not only did they have to deal with a complicated family situation, Juchelka and his wife also had to work because of their two older children. Oliver died at the age of ten. “When my wife Terezka came to tell me that it had happened, she only said one word: Already… It is a deep, lifelong sadnessbut at the same time it’s a hope for me that we’ll meet up there one day,” added Juchelka.
