Ukraine’s healthcare system now has a chance to be healed of a chronic disease: endemic corruption.
That was the main message voiced by Ukrainian Acting Health Minister Ulana Suprun at a meeting on Nov. 20 with business representatives at a round-table discussion sponsored by U.S.-Ukraine Business Council. Bringing local healthcare system closer to Western standards is one of Suprun’s key tasks.
However, it might take a while before changes will happen. It took more than a year, and then three days of voting on some 893 amendments (most of which were rejected) to approve a comprehensive healthcare package in the Verkhovna Rada on Oct. 19. Suprun promises that the package will improve the health of Ukrainians and the way the healthcare system itself operates.
“The system won’t change overnight,” Suprun said, adding that she’s not afraid of criticism she’s been facing lately from the parliamentary committee on healthcare.
On Nov. 14, the Verkhovna Rada, Ukraine’s parliament, passed at second reading a bill submitted by President Petro Poroshenko on increasing the accessibility and quality of healthcare services in rural areas. More than 13 million Ukrainian citizens – nearly a third of Ukraine’s total population of around 40 million people – currently live in rural areas. However, most physicians and health care providers are not willing to work outside the cities, according to the Health Ministry, because rural medicine in Ukraine “is funded far below needs,” and most rural healthcare facilities lack proper infrastructure and are not even equipped with basic facilities.
Suprun said the law should improve the accessibility and quality of healthcare services in rural areas, as healthcare institutions will gain more autonomy in managerial and financial decision-making functions, becoming more independent.
Under the new healthcare reform, Suprun hopes to create a national insurance system that pays doctors by the number of patients they have. Hospitals will be paid for services through the new system, rather than receiving lump sums from regional administrations, as is the practice now.
It also will allow patients to choose their doctor for the first time, rather than being tied to the doctor assigned to the area in which they a registered as living. The government says this will encourage medics to improve and give them less scope to demand backhanders.
The new system will also introduce a “money-following-the-patient” principle, intended to increase the overall efficiency of the healthcare system, provide patients with better access to treatment, and to introduce standardized pricing for services throughout the country – for both public and private hospitals. All health data will also be made available online, which will help doctors to treat patients in different cities.
Suprun also said that the new legislation will introduce two top positions in medical facilities – medical director and administrator – which will help to ease the bureaucratic burden currently borne by chief doctors.
