Ministry of Health recognizes that most hospitals are short of money because of second stage of health care reform. Up to 50%

Most Ukrainian hospitals have a funding gap due to the start of the second phase of health care reform. This was reported by Minister of Health Maksym Stepanov at a briefing in Kyiv today, - correspondent of OstroV reports.

"In connection with the start of the second stage of reform of the healthcare system, all our healthcare institutions (city, district and regional hospitals) switched to a different financing system, that is, they are financed through the National Health Service of Ukraine under contracts for specific medical services… From more than 1600 contracts, concluded with medical facilities throughout Ukraine, 984 hospitals are in deficit", - he stated.

According to the minister, these 984 hospitals will receive less money in 2020 than last year.

"This is a decrease from 10 to 50% in some hospitals", - Stepanov explained.

He used the emergency medical care center (103) in the Zaporizhia oblast as an example, underfunding of which this year is UAH 67 million. According to him, the consequence of such underfunding will be a reduction in emergency teams from 154 to 110.

"On the one hand, health care workers will be fired. On the other hand, as we all understand, a large number of people who call 103 will have more time to wait for the arrival of emergency teams due to the reduction of teams", - the minister said.

In addition, the audit showed that the tuberculosis service, psychiatric illnesses, emergency medical care and highly specialized medical directions are at risk of underfunding.

"Therefore, I instructed the departments of health to provide the Ministry of Health with full information on plans for the so-called network optimization, what will be the consequences of the reduction in health care workers … and continue to make decisions on what to do with this", - he reported.