On June 8, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine launched healthcare reform by 227 votes of MPs who supported draft law No. 6327 on state financial guarantees of the provision of healthcare services and medicinal products.

Between the first and the second readings of draft law No. 6327, which provides for a comprehensive reform of healthcare system in Ukraine, MPs submitted a total of 886 amendments. As of July 12, the working group has already incorporated 396 amendments to the draft laws included in the respective healthcare reform package to which draft law No. 6327 was fundamental. These amendments nullify the most significant innovations of the above said package, radically changing the content of the reform.

We would like to stress that if MPs support these proposals of the working group, the long-awaited systemic healthcare reform announced by Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman will not be launched. Adoption of draft law No. 6327 in the version proposed by the working group will result in merely superficial changes at the level of primary healthcare and will somewhat improve the quality of healthcare services and doctors’ labor conditions. However, Ukrainians will not experience the results of such a half-way reform. We would like to remind you that the effectiveness of healthcare reform depends on the specific instruments provided for by the draft law No. 6327 voted in the first reading, namely:

• introduction of healthcare services fees and contractual relations with healthcare institutions;
• establishment of the National Healthcare Service of Ukraine – a healthcare services commissioner independent of service providers (hospitals, local authorities, Healthcare Ministry);
• co-payment for certain healthcare services at the secondary and tertiary levels as a social mechanism to ensure the responsibility of patients and doctors and to guarantee transparent financing of the system;
• introduction of international clinical guidelines for treatment and diagnosis.

Besides the fact that draft law No. 6327 has been significantly amended in between the first and the second readings, parliamentary Healthcare Committee does all it can to delay the reform consideration, thereby preventing the launch of at least one of its critical components related to primary healthcare. This is done notwithstanding the fact that the working group included most of the members of the parliamentary Healthcare Committee. Although the majority of the adopted amendments are far from being progressive, if the Committee derails their consideration, this will impede the enforcement of those crucial provisions which are still preserved in this draft law.

In view of the above, Reanimation Package of Reforms – Ukraine’s largest coalition of civil society organizations – calls on the parliamentary Healthcare Committee to promptly provide its opinion regarding draft law No. 6327 and reject the following amendments reducing the key elements of the reform to nothing.