The Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine adopted the law submitted by the President of Ukraine "On Improving Affordability and Quality of Healthcare in Rural Areas" (No 7117) in the second reading and as a whole. 280 people's deputies cast an affirmative vote.

The new law is the part of the global healthcare reform initiated by the Ministry of Health. It envisages additional funding of rural healthcare, creation and motivation of doctors, introduction of telehealthcare service, etc.

Deputy Health Minister Pavlo Kovtoniuk has previously described the three steps needed to improve the quality of health services in rural areas in the course of an interview for "Decentralisation".

"First of all, it is necessary to involve a professional doctor in healthcare practice in the village. Secondly, this doctor should be provided with decent salary and decent working conditions: a suitable doctor’s office, modern medical equipment, office transport, etc. Thirdly, it is necessary to provide this doctor with decent living and household conditions, thus accommodation and infrastructure for his family, as far as young doctors with families and children will usually go to the village. Someone has to finance the establishment of infrastructure, the Internet supply, the purchase of an office car for a doctor, etc. The Presidential draft law is exactly to solve this problem. "

Hennadii Zubko, Vice Prime Minister – Minister of Regional Development, Construction, Housing and Communal Services of Ukraine, has also previously stated that MinRegion had analysed the existing primary healthcare network.

"Today there are 4000 outpatient clinics and 12 700 rural health posts in almost 23 thousand villages and rural settlements, but their terrible state really impresses. Only 28% of these institutions have water supply, one third of them have wells, only 18% have toilet facilities! Primary healthcare in the village should be reformed as soon as possible, the quality of medical services should be close to people and have a completely different quality. This is the goal of the initiative "Affordable, high quality medicine in rural areas", we have started to work on," said Hennadii Zubko.