The Scientific-Advisory Council on the Health Facilitation and Disease Prevention at the Health Care and Social Issues Committee discussed the National Healthcare Strategy for 2022-2030 and the Action Plan for 2022-2024.
The Chair of the Committee, Dimitri Khundadze, noted that public healthcare remains a key priority of the government, adding they have undertaken wide-scale reforms, including in the healthcare program.
“I believe it was one of the most significant reforms. However, deriving that it is a rapidly developing sphere, the reforms will be updated. This requires the enhancement of the healthcare sector, as it concerns the whole population and not certain segments,” he said.
“The greatest part of the budget is consumed on public healthcare. We need to enhance the human resources in the healthcare sector and improve the HR policy. During the pandemic, we have been once again convinced that this direction requires revision and improvement. It is also important to improve the quality of and accessibility to medicines. The initiative of the Prime Minister on the opening of the Turkish market is very important as it will reduce the cost of medicines, which is of utmost importance, as the greatest part of our citizen’s expenses go toward medicines,” Khundadze stated.
The three-year strategy was developed with the support of the Health Ministry.
“Since 2013, when the government assumed to develop the universal healthcare program, the accessibility to high-quality services has been improved,” noted First Deputy Health Minister, Tamar Gabunia. “The government actively worked for four years in this direction, bringing us closer to the fulfillment of the 2030 commitments, when global society will estimate the progress of countries in this direction, namely, healthcare quality, accessibility to medicines and safety of the population from disease-related financial risks.
“The strategy is a key vision of the high-quality and need-adjusted healthcare services to ensure the protection of the population from financial risks in case of diseases,” Gabunia stated.
The strategy aims at the improvement of the health of the population, universal accessibility to healthcare services and equal distribution of the financial burden.
The priorities in the strategy comply with the WHO recommendations, namely: enhancement of the healthcare sector; improvement of the healthcare financial system efficiency; development of human resources in the healthcare sector; accessibility to high-quality, effective and safe medicines; enhancement of healthcare management information system; enhancement of public healthcare, and; preparedness for health risks and improvement of responses.
