A key point of the Ukrainian health care reform is that medial aid will be provided regardless the place of registration of a patient. Every Ukrainian should choose a general practitioner, a paediatrician, and a family practitioner whose services will be paid by the government.

According to the Health Ministry, approximately 11.5 m patients, which makes a third of the total Ukrainian population, have signed declarations with their doctors. 22.3 thousand doctors have signed declarations with their patients. Mathematical calculations show that there are 514 patients per one such doctor, however, as one can see from the map of regions and health care institutions, there can be found regions that never commenced the process of signing declarations. This is primarily due to the Health Ministry’s failure to enter all health care institutions in the electronic system and not the lack of doctors. It seems clear that this results in a disproportionate workload for doctors with patients being entitled to choose any doctor whenever he practices medicine and, accordingly, select practitioners in neighbouring regions.

The possibility of implementing the planned programme and its efficiency can be exemplified as follows. According to temporary rates for family practitioners as approved by the Ministry of Health, an appointment should not take more than 18 minutes. According to the reform, a family practitioner is required to provide services to at least 2,000 patients. It will take him 600 hours or 75 working days to see such number of people. With 250 working days in a year, one can determine that any patient will not be able to see his doctor more than three times a year.

To learn more about implications of such a programme in the Ukrainian context, please read the article written by Olena Drozdova for Law & Business newspaper.