The first step in reforming the health care system has been made. Today, 280 Members of Parliament voted for Draft Law No. 2309 а-д providing for the independence of state-financed and municipally-owned health care institutions.

"This Draft Law provides for the possibility of handling financing precisely for the health-care services rendered to patients rather than maintaining premises of hospitals, as it is now. Also, for many years back, the health care institutions have been operating as publicly funded institutions. According to the Draft Law, the state-financed and municipally-owned health care institutions will continue to be owned by the state and municipalities and will not be subject to privatisation". – Member of the Verkhovna Rada (Parliament) of Ukraine Iryna Sysoyenko, Deputy Chairperson of the Health Care Committee of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine.

What will the health professionals get?

• The granting of the status of public and municipal non-commercial enterprises to the state-owned and municipally-owned health care institutions will allow them independently determining all matters pertaining to the organisation of their activities, starting from the determination of their organizational structure, manning table, bed capacity, etc.
• The said law allows transferring to the use of new principles and methods of funding which will be based on the payment for specific operating results of each particular health care institution.
• The hospitals will be able to freely dispose of their budget. The independence will allow the health care institutions determining by themselves for what purposes the funds should be spent.
• That will facilitate the formation of incentives for the said institutions aiming both at improvement of the quality and economic efficiency of the medical care provided thereby to the population and, hence, ensuring medical care of higher quality and efficiency.
• The obtaining of autonomy by health care institutions will facilitate the development of their capabilities in engaging other than the budgetary funding sources thus enhancing their financial and economic sustainability and capability of withstanding numerous financial challenges caused by the hard general financial and economic circumstances.

What will the patients get?

• The patient will not have to pay twice for any health-care service included in the list of services guaranteed by the state - for the first time, when he or she pays taxes, and the for second time, when he or she seeks medical advice. Because of the independence of health care institutions, all shadow financial flows have to disappear.
• The patient will select a health care institution with which he/ she will enter into an agreement on health-care services thus creating conditions for the development of a high-quality and efficient system of state-funded and municipally-owned health care institutions in the country.
• At the health care institutions, there will be established public supervisory boards. The key line of activities of those boards will be in exercising public control over the compliance with the rights and ensuring the safety of patients, compliance with the ethical principles and legislative requirements to health-care services provided by a health care institution; also, they will have access to financial and business activities of such health care institution. That will allow avoiding financial misconduct on the part of management of the health care institution and improving the quality of health-care services provided to the patient.

Also, according to Ms. Iryna Sysoyenko, the adoption and implementation of the said Draft Law is the first step to the introduction of insurance medicine in Ukraine.

"Today, our Parliament has made an important step to the health care reform... Now, subject to a resolution made by a local authority, the municipally-owned health care institutions may extricate themselves from the gripe of regulations developed by the central authorities and operate independently. This means that they will: have their own accounts with banks, determine the manning table and salaried staff policy by themselves, be energy efficient, etc.", Deputy Minister of Health Pavlo Kovtonyuk commented on his Facebook page.

According to him, the next will come the draft documents developed by the Government as approved yesterday at the meeting of the Cabinet of Ministers, in particular, the draft law "On Government Financial Guarantees Regarding the Provision of Health-Care Services and Medicinal Products", the adoption of which documents, in conjunction with Draft Law No. 2309а-д, will ensure that our health care makes a civilizational jump forward.