14 million Ukrainians living in villages should be provided with accessible and quality primary healthcare. This is the task of the law No.2206, adopted by the Parliament and initiated by President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko. The ultimate goal is in 2-3-5 years to reduce mortality of Ukrainians living in rural areas in terms of three most common nosologies in Ukraine: cardiovascular disease, bronchial asthma, diabetes mellitus.

This was stressed by Hennadii Zubko, Vice-Prime Minister – Minister of Regional Development, Construction, Housing and Communal Services of Ukraine, during the conference call on the state of implementation of the rural healthcare reform.

“Mortality from cardiovascular disease is on the first place. Today, 45 thousand myocardial infarctions are diagnosed annually in Ukraine, of which more than 15 thousand – in rural areas. By developing rural primary healthcare with the use of telemedicine, we set the goal to reduce infarction-caused death rate in villages thrice due to early diagnostics. About 1,7 million Ukrainians suffer from bronchial asthma. Each year, more than 19,000 new cases of diabetes are recorded, of which 8,000 are children. Therefore, timely and accessible prevention of these diseases, diagnostics and timely primary medical assistance, as well as monitoring, allow us to deal with these nosologies. And this is the task of the primary healthcare link,” said Hennadii Zubko.

According to him, dermatology can be added as the fourth nosology today, since a large part of the population has dermatological problems. Consultations on dermatology today account for 20% of all appeals.

“We set out the declared goals as at the level of Ukraine, so should they be put at the level of each rural outpatient clinic in a capable primary healthcare network. And to achieve these goals by 100% we need to provide three basic things: a rural network with the necessary number of outpatient clinics, a family doctor with proper working conditions (salary, premises, housing, transport), modern equipment and, most importantly, the possibility of telemedicine services,” Hennadii Zubko emphasised.