OREANDA-NEWS. April 17, 2015. The National Council of Reforms is considering proposals of the Ministry of Health on the reformation of the given sphere.

Touching upon this issue at the meeting of the National Council of Reforms, President Petro Poroshenko noted that reformation of healthcare sphere was one of the top priorities for the country. “It is difficult to find a sphere, where the situation is so urgently problematic, so neglected and so corrupt. National healthcare system has become our national disaster,” Petro Poroshenko said.

According to the President, the main thing missing in this sphere is truth and responsibility. “We are missing honest recognition that free medicine is one of the biggest myths of our time used by Ukrainian politicians every year to fool people,” Petro Poroshenko noted. He urged to get rid of this myth. According to the President, people believe in free-of-charge medicine until they get sick and have to go to the doctor. “The truth is somebody has to pay for medical services and the state itself cannot handle with that. One cannot heal everyone with the state budget. We must introduce an efficient system of reformed medicine,” the President said.

The Head of State has emphasized that the strategy of reforming the given sphere should be focused on the patient. “The final indicator of reform should be the average life expectancy determined in the Strategy of Reforms – 2020. The average life expectancy increases, thus, medicine is efficient. The average life expectancy decreases, thus, medicine is inefficient, no matter what sweet songs one may sing to us,” the President noted.

Speaking of drug prices, the President has emphasized that “price tags in pharmacies remind price tags in jewelry stores”. “Steps suggested by us for making the procurement of drugs more transparent and registration more simplified have eliminated the major part of bureaucratic and corruption components, which had been unreasonably increasing the drug prices up to 40-50%,” the Head of State noted.

The President has endorsed the proposal of his advisor Olha Bohomolets and instructed Minister of Health Oleksandr Kvitashvili to open the registers of benchmark prices for drugs and make them public.

The Head of State has informed on the signature of Law, which provides for the implementation of public procurement of drugs with participation of international organizations, particularly the World Health Organization and UNICEF. International experience shows that the introduction of such procedure will allow saving up to 40% in the procurement of pharmaceuticals. “It will be a powerful strike on pharmaceutical mafia, which has been earning money on the health of people for 23 years,” the President emphasized.