How to effectively manage health care at the municipality level? What are the benefits of high-quality interaction between healthcare facilities of different levels? How can you make your facility self-sustaining? Answers to these questions were covered by the study visit “Management of Healthcare Facilities in the Municipalities of the Poltava Oblast” organised by U-LEAD.

The training programme “Steps for Specialists. Healthcare Management in the Municipality” finished with a study visit. It aimed to present good management practices and various aspects of interaction between healthcare facilities within the medical services system to municipal officials.

The first day of the visit focused on exploring the healthcare system of the Poltava Oblast and interaction between the Healthcare Department of the Regional Military Administration, specialised and primary-level healthcare facilities. The participants visited the Poltava Regional Centre for Emergency Care and Disaster Medicine and the Regional Clinical Medical Cardiovascular Centre launched in 2021. The highlight of the first day was a visit to the Nekhvoroshcha Village Council’s Primary Healthcare Centre, which was created, received modern medical equipment and opened already during the full-scale war.

As part of the event, they also visited the Myrhorod municipality. Here, one of the ways to bring medical services closer to the public was by building modular outpatient clinics in the city’s districts. This solution allowed more patients to receive medical services close to home.

As for the Khorol urban municipality, the participants visited the Khorol City Hospital and talked with the management and doctors of the local Primary Healthcare Centre. They also inspected the former non-residential premises reconstructed to be used as housing for doctors.

Generally speaking, the practice of the Poltava Oblast of attracting doctors to work in municipalities is rather curious and worth studying. Here they create conditions and build housing for doctors and attract resources to retain practitioners. After all, if good specialists are available, healthcare facilities also gain a large number of patients, which improves the financial position of municipal companies accordingly. This equally applies to doctors providing primary healthcare and the number of declarations signed with them, and to specialised doctors. After all, the principle “money follows the patient” also works here, which means a completely different level of income for municipal hospitals.

“The experience gained by the participants of the training programme in the Poltava Oblast will encourage them to make appropriate changes in their municipalities. Practical cases on the management of healthcare facilities, the arrangement of medical services, ensuring their availability and quality, as well as successful mechanisms for attracting doctors to the municipality are worth following and applying,” said Vitalii Shvets, Coordinator of the Training Programme and Head of the Regional Office of the U-LEAD with Europe in the Vinnytsia Oblast.

Summarising what they saw in the municipalities of Poltava Oblast, the participants of the visit appreciated smooth communication and attracting specialists, as well as bringing services closer to patients, among their best practices:

“The practice of attracting extra-budgetary resources and writing projects for healthcare facilities is a valuable experience for our municipality. From what we have seen, we would like to implement the construction of housing for doctors in our municipality. Young professionals can really be incentivised by this. We are grateful to U-LEAD for the opportunity of a hands-on study of other municipalities’ experiences. Again, we feel that the opportunity to observe the experience first-hand and communicate with other municipalities face-to-face has motivated us to make changes in our own,” said Alla Zhovtyla, Deputy Mayor of Mala Vyska, Kirovohrad Oblast.

In turn, Oksana Melnyk, Chief Physician of the Tlumach Primary Healthcare Centre, Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast, gave credit to the communication, cooperation and interaction between all links of the healthcare system and senior municipal officials:

“Once you establish smooth interaction and mutual understanding, innovation takes root well. We saw this in the municipalities of Myrhorod and Nekhvoroshcha. I was impressed by the attitude towards medical workers, the way they value professionals and create conditions for them. The emergency care system in the Poltava Oblast is very memorable due to its well-established telemedicine, such as issuing ECG results followed by immediate advice.”

“Steps for Specialists. Healthcare Management in the Municipality” was a 7-week training programme. It brought together 89 municipality officials from different regions of Ukraine.