Azernews.Az

Tuesday March 19 2024

EU ambassador: Compulsory health insurance should cover all citizens

22 May 2019 15:10 (UTC+04:00)
EU ambassador: Compulsory health insurance should cover all citizens

By Leman Mammadova

Implementing large infrastructure projects and application of effective policies in medical industry serve to the improvement of the healthcare system in the country.

In the framework of the European Union (EU) Days on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of the Eastern Partnership program, EU representatives visited the Central Hospital of Mingachevir city.

They got acquainted with the work of the medical institution, where, as a pilot project, the compulsory health insurance system has been introduced, as well as with the “Support to implementation of compulsory health insurance in Azerbaijan” twinning project funded by the EU.

The event was attended by the EU Ambassador to Azerbaijan Kestutis Jankauskas, representative of the Compulsory Health Insurance State Agency Agency Nurlan Mammadov, Director of the Hospital Konul Alakbarov, participants of the twinning project and international experts.

Jankauskas stressed that healthcare is an important industry in terms of human capital development.

“A pilot project is being implemented in Azerbaijan in this area, and the EU provides support through specialists from France, Lithuania and Estonia,” he said, noting that as part of the twinning project, various models of compulsory health insurance are being tested for Azerbaijan to choose the most suitable one.

In his words, the twinning project results show that all citizens of Azerbaijan should be covered by compulsory health insurance.

In turn, Compulsory Health Insurance State Agency representative Nurlan Mammadov stressed that such elements as helping develop a model for designing and financing the introduction of compulsory health insurance in Azerbaijan, improving the basic package, signing contracts with medical providers, recommendations and proposals for the development of information technologies played a big role in the implementation of the pilot project in Azerbaijan.

Central Hospital Director Konul Alakbarov said that after the introduction of compulsory health insurance in the hospital, the material and technical base has been improved and the personnel potential has been strengthened.

The "Expertise France" representative Andrei Tretyak, in turn, spoke about the role of compulsory health insurance in protecting public health. In his words, its implementation will lead to economic growth in Azerbaijan.

In turn, Resident Twinning Adviser Gediminas Chernyauskas stated that the positive results were obtained in the pilot areas of compulsory health insurance in 2017-2018 as well as salaries of health workers increased, the financial burden on surgical operations of citizens was significantly reduced.

It should be noted that the EU-funded twinning project "Support to implementation of compulsory health insurance in Azerbaijan" aims to strengthen the institutional capacity at the State Compulsory Health Insurance Agency to plan, execute and monitor healthcare spending in three elements: collection, accumulation of funds and purchasing of healthcare services.

The pilot project on compulsory health insurance has been implemented in Azerbaijan since late 2016. It currently covers the city of Mingachevir and the Yevlakh and Aghdash regions. The project is executed by the State Compulsory Health Insurance Agency, the mission for Europe and international affairs of the Ministry of Social Affairs of France and Lithuanian social protection bodies.

During the first year of implementation of the pilot project, a lot of attention was paid to the number of services and their accessibility for the population, and in the second year, the attention was paid more to quality. At the same time, organizers prepared a plan for a full transition of the entire country to compulsory medical insurance.

The introduction of compulsory health insurance throughout Azerbaijan will begin in 2020.

Implementing large infrastructure projects and application of effective policies in medical industry serve to the improvement of the healthcare system in the country.

---

Leman Mammadova is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @leman_888

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz

Loading...
Latest See more