Kucinskis broke the news, saying he had accepted Belevics' resignation after indications the minister had misled him about having special treatment for a minor skin complaint, reported LSM's Latvian language service.
Later, in a press conference to officially announce his resignation, a defiant Belevics proudly listed all his achievements during his seven months as health minister and thanked his colleagues at the ministry.
"I apologise to Latvia's patients, to Latvia's medics... and I apologise to you journalists that even yesterday I was not completely clear to you about all the nuances."
"But I want to be clear that I did not jump the lines, I was not a special patient and I did not use state health service facilities," he said.
Belevics had repeatedly insisted he had received treatment at a private clinic and had not used his position to intentionally jump waiting lists to get treatment for a minor skin complaint, as alleged by the Latvijas Avize newspaper earlier this week.
However he did admit that the treatment he had received at a private clinic was heavily subsidized by the state and that he had undergone another procedure in a state clinic - but said his efforts to pay for it were waved away.
Belevics had been implicated in several other controversies involving allegations of conflicts of interest during his time as a minister, but it is the fact he appears to have not been completely open with the prime minister - a fellow party member of the Greens and Farmers Alliance - and the journalists continued to press him on the matter that sealed his fate.
