For this discussion, I chose to review a healthcare system in Ukraine, one of the Central (Eastern) European countries. One of the defining features of the current healthcare landscape in Europe is its post-Soviet heritage and historical circumstances which defined the country’s ongoing transition (Cela, 2019). In the 20th century, the country was part of the Soviet Union, and the healthcare delivery was under the state’s mandate. The state took responsibility for the payouts and provided medical support to patients. After gaining independence in 1991, the healthcare sector experienced excessive amounts of bribery and lack of competencies (Levenets, 2019). The country did not have a clear-cut vision for reshaping its healthcare sector and ensure that the health system would primarily serve the patients’ needs. Only after the Revolution of Dignity, a major political event which led to the empowerment of new political elites, the country started to develop a new healthcare model based on the combination of insurance-based model, whereby the state would reimburse and compensate most of the healthcare delivery models.
As to the aspect that could easily be challenged in the current approach to reforming the sector, opposition of doctors across the country as well as the need for further eradication of corruption in healthcare sector constitute the two major challenges in Ukraine (Cela, 2019). Although the country refers to the American model of healthcare functioning, a complete replication of the American model to Ukraine is impossible due to the different cultural and political model.
The strategy of measuring healthcare delivery through evidence-based research would constitute the most optimal way for understanding the country’s mistakes. More so, healthcare institutions that are currently enforcing the reform implementation process should solicit feedback from their patients and aim at accurate identification of the issues which may be burdensome to their patients. In that case, the Ministry of Health of Ukraine would understand the most challenging and the most prosperous areas of the reform implementation.
- Cela, B. (2019). Reshaping the healthcare landscape in Ukraine. Retrieved 29 August 2019, from http://www.ua.undp.org/content/ukraine/en/home/blog/2019/reshaping-the-healthcare-landscape-in-ukraine.html
- Levenets, O. (2019). Health Care Reform in Ukraine: What Are the Major Bottlenecks? – Around the CASPIAN.
- Retrieved 29 August 2019, from http://caspianet.eu/2019/01/17/health-care-reform-in-ukraine-what-are-the-major-bottlenecks/
- What Ukraine’s healthcare reform is about (2019) |. Retrieved 29 August 2019, from http://euromaidanpress.com/2017/10/20/what-ukraines-healthcare-reform-is-about/
