Volodymyr Groysman: Government includes in budget UAH 1 billion to finance the Available Medicines program for 2018

The Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine has included in 2018 draft budget the sum worth UAH 1 billion to finance the Available Medicines program, launched in April of this year. This was announced by Prime Minister of Ukraine Volodymyr Groysman at the CMU session.

"It has been 6 months since we rolled out the Available Medicines program. Our objectives include a sound economy – strong social policies. Prescriptions to obtain free medicines have been provided to over 6.5 million people. Next year we have planned in the budget the sum worth UAH 1 billion to finance the program. The list of medicines will be enlarged, people will get better access to medicines," the Head of Government said and added in this regard it is especially important to prolong transformations in the health care system so that people could feel quality of services is improving.

Background

The Government launched the Available Medicines program in April of 2017 aimed to address one of the key challenges – to improve the well-being of Ukrainians and extend life expectancy in Ukraine. The program provides for the provision of free medicines or the reimbursement of a portion of the price of drugs to cure cardiovascular disease, asthma and diabetes. The source of funding is the state budget, and, according to the Head of Government, the program is in the budget range. The total cost of the program for 2017 is over UAH 700 million.

According to the Ministry of Health, the number of pharmacies-participants in the program has increased to more than 6.5 thousand institutions.