Rural primary health care seeks to reduce mortality from three nosologies, says Hennadii Zubko

14 million Ukrainians living in villages should be provided with affordable and high-quality primary health care. These objectives are encapsulated in the law № 2206 which was drafted upon initiative by the President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko and adopted by the Parliament. The ultimate goal is to reduce the mortality of people living in rural areas in 2-3-5 years from  the three most common nosologies in Ukraine: cardiovascular disease, bronchial asthma, diabetes mellitus. This was stated by Vice Prime Minister/Minister of Regional Development, Construction, Housing and Utilities of Ukraine Hennadii Zubko during a conference call dedicated to the state of implementation of the rural medicine reform.

"Mortality from cardiovascular disease ranks the first place. Today in Ukraine, 45 thousand cases of myocardial infarction are diagnosed annually, of which more than 15 thousand are in rural areas. Through building rural primary health care and using telemedicine, we set the goal: to reduce the death rate from infarction in the village. About 1.7 million Ukrainians suffer from bronchial asthma. Each year, more than 19,000 new cases of diabetes are recorded, of which 8,000 are children. Therefore, timely prevention of these diseases is available, diagnosis and primary timely assistance, as well as monitoring allow to deal with these nosologies. And this is the task of the primary health care", Hennadii Zubko stressed.

According to the Vice Prime Minister, dermatology can be also added to these three nosologies. A large part of the population has dermatological problems.  Consultations on dermatology today make up nearly 20% of all appeals.

"We implement the declared goals at the national level, and they should be implemented in each rural outpatient clinic in a capable network of primary health care. In order to achieve the set targets we need to implement three main things: a rural network with the required number of outpatient clinics, a family doctor with proper working conditions (wages, working space, housing, transport), a modern equipment and, most importantly, the possibility of telemedicine services", Hennadii Zubko emphasized.