The implementation of medical reform requires 200 billion hryvnia. Ukraine doesn't have that kind of money
Bill No. 6327, “On State Financial Guarantees in Medicine,” adopted last week by the Verkhovna Rada, provides for expenses for which there is simply no money in the Ukrainian budget.
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The president of the All-Ukrainian Council for the Protection of the Rights and Safety of Patients, Viktor Serdyuk, stated this at a press conference in Kyiv, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
“Currently, in intensive care units, the provision of even artificial respiration devices is half of what is needed. If we are talking about such an important thing as a gas analyzer, which should be in every department, then only 3% of intensive care units have gas analyzers,” he said.
According to his calculations, to provide only intensive care units with the necessary equipment, 4-5 billion UAH are needed, but this is not provided for in the 2018 budget.
“We see this law where it says ‘emergency medical care’ and we see that this is not in the budget,” he said.
There is no money for palliative medical care, which is also mentioned in the law.
“Palliative medical care must be provided in full. And for it to be provided in full, we need personnel, space, and, again, equipment. We have only about 10 inpatient hospices throughout Ukraine. And in Poland there are more than 400 units that provide palliative medical care. Can you imagine how everything should grow, at least in quantitative terms (not to mention the training of doctors, nurses, and social workers)? We have only one department that trains personnel for palliative care. There are only four people there who can train doctors, nurses, etc.,” says Victor Serdyuk.
In order to provide palliative medical care in a minimum volume, approximately 7-9 billion UAH are needed. These funds are also not provided for in the budget, although the law talks about palliative medical care. It also provides for the provision of medical care to children under 16 years of age in accordance with the Convention on the Rights of the Child signed by Ukraine, but this again requires money - about 50-60 billion UAH.
In total, the implementation of eight points will require about 200 billion UAH, which approximately corresponds to 5% of Ukraine’s GDP (as provided by law).
“I think that after such a crazy information campaign, we all need to make sure that all eight points are fulfilled - emergency, primary, secondary, highly specialized, palliative... Let's start with emergency. There is nowhere to take people, they are waiting in line in hospitals, there are no resuscitators,” he says.
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