The Ministry of Health of Ukraine held a meeting of Minister Viktor Lyashko with the participation of deputies with representatives of the European Regional Office of the WHO headed by its director Hans Kluge, as well as colleagues from the WHO Office in Ukraine.
“This is my fifth visit to Ukraine in the last year, and my support for the Ministry of Health and the health care system is stronger than ever,” said Dr. Kluge. — The WHO’s support to Ukraine is increasingly based on data and evidence that allows identifying critical current and future needs in the field of health care. This allows us to better plan and identify the resources needed in the long term. The health care system of Ukraine turned out to be extremely stable, which is evidence of the effective work of the management team and medical workers under the leadership of Minister Viktor Lyashko.”
The minister thanked the WHO for the large-scale support in the field of health care during the entire period of independence and especially during the last year of the full-scale war.
“We have experience of long-term effective cooperation with WHO at all levels, both in peacetime and in wartime. Thanks to international partners, our medical system managed not only to survive, but also to become stronger in many ways. Since the beginning of the full-scale military aggression, WHO has provided 1,374 tons of medical supplies worth 36 million US dollars as humanitarian aid, which were sent to 692 medical facilities throughout Ukraine. Thank you for your concern and reliable shoulder of support. We are working together to ensure the quality, availability and free of charge of medical care for Ukrainians as much as possible,” Viktor Lyashko noted.
They discussed the priority needs and areas of cooperation for 2023 for the most effective coordination of efforts, namely:
- supporting the work of the Interdepartmental Coordinating Council on Mental Health Protection and the provision of psychological assistance to persons who suffered as a result of the armed aggression of the Russian Federation against Ukraine, which coordinates projects within the framework of the All-Ukrainian Mental Health Program, created at the initiative of First Lady Olena Zelenska;
- scaling up projects in the field of physical rehabilitation, taking into account the growing demand for this type of medical services as a result of a full-scale war;
- modernization of disease control and prevention centers in order to develop their ability to respond to potential challenges associated with the use of chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear weapons;
- the development of digitization projects in the field of health care, which will contribute to increasing the availability of medical services and reducing the administrative burden on the system;
- measures aimed at increasing the level of immunization of people and preventing outbreaks of infectious diseases;
- continued support for responding to emergency calls related to ensuring the availability of medical supplies in the de-occupied territories by involving in the work of mobile groups and mobile dispensaries;
- further cooperation in ensuring medical evacuation, both in terms of sending Ukrainians for treatment abroad, and their return back to Ukraine;
- expert support of WHO specialists regarding the finalization of the Health Care System Development Strategy until 2030;
- development of projects in the field of medical education to minimize the consequences of a potential crisis of medical personnel;
- involvement of WHO experts in matters of assessment of the quality of medical care.
In general, joint projects will concern both assistance in responding to challenges related to the consequences of Russian military aggression, and the strategic development of Ukraine’s health care system.
We will remindrecently the WHO representative office in Ukraine, with the support of the European Union, donated 59 buses to the Ministry of Health of Ukraine to help strengthen large-scale vaccination throughout the country during the war.
