The government has adopted a resolution that allows launching the next stage of medical reform. It envisages updating approaches to defining hospital districts and implementing modern approaches to forming a network of medical institutions.
“It is through the third, so-called infrastructural, stage of the medical reform that we are trying to realize the achievement of three key indicators — ensuring the availability, quality and free of charge of medical care for Ukrainians. New approaches to hospital planning will also allow us to determine priorities for the post-war recovery of the health care system. The development and modernization plans of each hospital in a capable network will be clear to everyone: the patient, the manager, the owner, the National Health Service and the Ministry, – comments Viktor Lyashko. — We will all work to ensure that the hospitals of the capable network become hospitals with a quality mark. Once in them, the patient can be sure that he was taken to the medical facility that corresponds to his condition and illness, that the hospital has the necessary specialists and equipment to provide him with high-quality medical care. There will not be situations (as often happens now) when a patient with a heart attack or stroke enters a hospital where modern treatment methods are not used, such as thrombolysis, because there are no specialists, or thrombus extraction, because the necessary equipment is not available, or the specialists are not sufficiently qualified to perform such procedures”.
The implementation of the mentioned reform will allow rational distribution of purchases and deliveries of expensive equipment between hospitals, in accordance with their role in the capable network of the hospital district. Currently, hospital managers often abuse by buying equipment, which then sits idle for years or is turned on only a few times a year, because the institution does not have the required number of patients, or it does not have specialists who are able to work on this equipment at all.
According to the government’s resolution, within two months, regional military administrations must submit their own vision of the hospital district plan and the formation of a capable network, taking into account the development of primary medical care facilities and emergency medical care centers, for approval by the Ministry of Health.
Together with a capable network of medical institutions, each region must submit a plan for the development of the hospital district, which will be reviewed every 3 years. This is the road map with clearly defined steps, according to which the hospital district will develop. Currently, the reform will begin in the territory of 18 regions and in the city of Kyiv. The reform currently involves those territories where active hostilities are not taking place.
Undoubtedly, the war made its corrections in the implementation of the reform. Currently, it will NOT be implemented in the Zaporizhzhia, Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, Mykolaiv regions and the territory of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea. However, immediately after the de-occupation and stabilization of the situation, we will begin the formation of a capable network of hospitals in these regions.
