Healthcare in Ukraine is deteriorating, doctors are leaving en masse
Due to insufficient funding, Ukraine's healthcare is deteriorating and doctors are leaving en masse.
The founder of the ANTS network, Yaroslav Sidorovich, stated this at a press conference in Kyiv, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
According to him, in terms of healthcare spending as a share of GDP, Ukraine lags behind countries such as Russia and China.
“We are now between India and Indonesia. We are far from China, which has 5%, and far from Russia (5,3%),” Sidorovich said.
He says that on a per capita basis, Ukraine spends less than Indonesia.
“Our funding from all budgets will be as much as $162 per capita, if we remove guarantees, then it will be $104 versus $10,5 thousand in the USA. 100 times less than in the USA and much less than in the Russian Federation - there is 1,5 thousand dollars,” the expert said.
In his message to the Verkhovna Rada on the internal and external situation of Ukraine on October 20, 2020, President of Ukraine Vladimir Zelensky said that in 2021 the minimum salary of a doctor will be increased to 20-25 thousand hryvnia, a nurse - 15 thousand hryvnia, junior medical personnel - up to 10-12 thousand hryvnia.
At the same time, the average salary in the healthcare sector in September 2020 was 9058 hryvnia, which is much lower than the economic average.
“How many times should healthcare funding increase in order for the declared salary to be 24 thousand hryvnia?” asked Sidorovich.
It is also noted that the number of health workers is rapidly declining. If in 2017 there were 853 thousand full-time health workers in the country, now there are already 735 thousand. A sharp reduction occurred in April 2020, which is likely due to a reduction in the wage fund - if in March it was 8159 million hryvnia, then in April it was 7008 million hryvnia. After the mass dismissal of health workers, the head of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Health Affairs said that funding should be increased.
“The first mistake we immediately begin to correct is insufficient funding of the healthcare system. The National Health Committee insists on the need to double funding for the healthcare system next year, to 6% of GDP,” Radutsky said in May 2020.
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