The Prime Minister of Ukraine Volodymyr Groysman calls for a thorough investigation into each case of weak implementation of the government program Available Medicines and calls on the leadership of the Ministry of Healtcare of Ukraine and the State Treasury Service of Ukraine to join the said actvities. The Head of Government issued this statement during a special meeting dedicated to the situation concerning  the implementation of the government initiative.

"There is a weird situation. We have shaped a program, allocated UAH 1 billion, provided mechanisms, and as a result people do not have access to medicines", the Prime Minister stated and also stressed that funds for the implementation of program were received by local authorities on January 4, in accordance with the Law of Ukraine "On the State Budget for 2018". At the same time, according to the date released by the State Treasury Service, funds were distributed only in 14 regions, and there are problems in 9 regions.

"If the problems were global in nature, such situation would be existed across the country. We need to go through each region and find out what is happening, why recipes  are not prescribed in pharmacies, Volodymyr Groysman claimed, I am worried about what the problem is, either it's technical reasons or someone has no conscience. If the problem is procedural, let's draw conclusions and eliminate it for the future. If the matter is in indifferent approach of local leaders, thus I will not forgive it. And I will talk about it publicly. Sick people can’t wait."

Volodymyr Groysman placed a special emphasis on the fact that enlargement of the Available Medicines programme, both through the expansion of the list of medicines, and the expansion of the geography of pharmacies - participants in the program will be a next step of the implementation of the said program.

In this context, the Prime Minister aired an proposal to conduct a regular - monthly monitoring of the implementation of the program with the constant informing the leadership of the  Cabinet of Ministers as well as to carry out a survey of people-participants of the program in order to improve it.

Background

The government program Available Medicines  was launched on April 1, 2017 within the framework of the Government's declared course aimed to improve the health system and increase the life expectancy of citizens. The first three nosologies under this program were diabetes, asthma and cardiovascular diseases. In 2017, the Government allocated a sum worth  UAH 700 million for the  implementation of the program. According to the Ministry of Healthcare, last year over 198 medicines were covered by the program, the number of producers - participants of the program exceeded 50, and  over 6.7.thousand drugstores took part in the government initiative. Almost 14 million patients received medicines for free or with a small surcharge. At present, the Ministry of Healthcare is shaping a new and expanded list of drugs under the program and expects more pharmaceutical companies to join the initiative.