Gov't emphasizes the responsibility of the Ministry of Healthcare and local authorities for the implementation of state medical programs

The Cabinet of Ministers insists on deepening responsibility of the Ministry of Healthcare of Ukraine and local self-governments for the implementation of government medical programs. Prime Minister of Ukraine Volodymyr Groysman made this statement during a meeting dedicated to issues of procurement of medicines, provision of vaccines and further retrofitting of the health care system.

The Head of Government stressed the system of health care is undergoing fundamental changes, but the leadership of the Ministry and local authorities should work in synergy in order to define problems and resolve them shortly. However, it concerns both drug purchase and payment of salaries to doctors, and the implementation of programs, in particular the government program Available Medicines. Moreover, state budget financing of all expenditures on the health care system is transparent and in line with the scheduled plan. Local authorities possess necessary resources.

"Let's give people more information about why they do not have, for example, access to medicines and who block the process," the Prime Minister claimed, "We have to resolve the situation. The government decision will be approved if this is necessary. We allocated 6 billion hryvnias on the purchase of medicines (per year), I want these drugs be timely purchased so that people could get medicines. We have to be responsible fulfilling our duties, otherwise we will not work together".

The Prime Minister assured the Ministry’s experts of the full support, first of all, for necessary regulatory decisions. "I have no reasons to doubt about the professionalism of health workers, but I stress that it is necessary to work hard. I have enough political will to adopt decisions," he underscored.

He stressed that human life is the most precious thing and losing it because of the lack of necessary approval documents is inadmissible.

Background

At the end of January, the Prime Minister demanded thorough investigation into every case of improper implementation of vaccine and drug programs as well as the Available Medicines program and called on the leadership of the Ministry of Healthcare of Ukraine and the State Treasury Service of Ukraine to join the said actvities. The Head of Government placed a special emphasis on the fact that financing of programs is being carried out timely, but for various reasons, including unjustified ones, the situation in the health care system is different on the ground. "If the problem is procedural, let's draw conclusions and eliminate it for the future. If the matter is in indifferent approach of local leaders, thus I will not forgive it. And I will talk about it publicly. Sick people can’t wait," Volodymyr Groysman urged.

Apart from that, the Head of Government stressed the necessity to bring to the attention of every citizen the medical initiatives and opportunities. In this context, he proposed to conduct a regular - monthly monitoring of the implementation of medical programs, in particular vaccination programs and Available Medicines programs, with the constant informing the leadership of the Cabinet of Ministers as well as to carry out a survey of people-participants of the program in order to improve it.

The government program Available Medicines was launched on April 1, 2017 within the framework of the Government's declared course aimed to improve the health system and increase the life expectancy of citizens. The first three nosologies under this program were diabetes, asthma and cardiovascular diseases. In 2017, the Government allocated a sum worth UAH 700 million for the implementation of the program. According to the Ministry of Healthcare, last year over 198 medicines were covered by the program, the number of producers - participants of the program exceeded 50, and over 6.7.thousand drugstores took part in the government initiative. Almost 14 million patients received medicines for free or with a small surcharge. At present, the Ministry of Healthcare is shaping a new and expanded list of drugs under the program and expects more pharmaceutical companies to join the initiative.