Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych has ordered Education Minister Dmytro Tabachnyk and Health Minister Oleksandr Anischenko to discuss with the population their plans about closures of schools and hospitals.
"It is planned to close schools and hospitals in some regions. This cannot be done without the participation of the public! And I would like to address ministers Tabachnyk and Anischenko: inform people a year or two beforehand, so that people know and understand that this is being done to improve the conditions for the medical treatment of people and the education of children," he said at a meeting of the Economic Reform Committee in Kyiv on Wednesday.
The president told the ministers: "If you don’t do this, you will regret it."
Yanukovych also said that reform implementation without involving the public in 2011 was a mistake and called on the participants of the process to involve the population in the reform implementation and explanation process more actively.
