Information for Persons visiting Ministry of Health
History of the Ministers of Health
Minister of Health
Dear visitors of our website,
The website of the Ministry of Health publishes relevant and useful information about the health system of Lithuania, the organisation of health care in the country and the key decisions of health policymakers. We have an excellent opportunity to strengthen our cooperation as patients, medical professionals, policymakers and managers, which is of primary importance for solving health problems. Let us speak about problems in a simple language understandable to everyone, let us discuss them and listen to other opinions.
In their programme the fifteenth Government of the Republic of Lithuania is committed to submit a strategic plan for further development of the health care system in 2008–2012, for approval of the Parliament. This is necessary in order to carry out an efficient reform of our system which especially needs support from the public.
Optimising the network of personal health care establishments and restructuring services, reducing prices of medicines and improving their availability for the population, strengthening the family doctor institution and the whole of primary health care, improving the health funding system, reducing corruption in the health care system, improving the business environment, minimising unnecessary bureaucracy and developing an e-health system all represent further steps of the health system reform that will ensure a systematic movement towards the main objective – available and safe health care of adequate quality that is both patient- and doctor-friendly.
The rapid rise in funding over the past several years has failed to improve the situation of patients or their satisfaction with the health care system. The current cuts in funding have highlighted the ineffectiveness of the system in particular. Failure to take adequate measures may have an especially negative impact on the availability of services and lead to bankruptcy of health establishments.
Therefore, as part of the implementation of the third stage programme for restructuring health care establishments, we will build a more effective network of personal health care establishments and a more rational structure of services delivered by them that would ensure safe services of quality.
Continuing the implementation of the ‘Plan for improving the availability of medicines and reducing their prices’ not only will improve the availability of new and innovative medicines for the population but will also reduce prices of non-refundable medicines. Achieving this will be possible through the regulation of the manufacturer’s price and the fixing of maximum markups for wholesalers and pharmacies. In particular, we will focus on the reduction of corruption and instances of unethical behaviour in the pharmaceutical sector.
Implementing the corruption prevention programme in the health system, we will minimise opportunities for corruption and eliminate conditions for its manifestations in the health system. With a view to ensuring more transparent and efficient activities of health care establishments and their staff, we will make efforts to attain that all funds allocated for the health system are used for their intended purpose in a rational manner for providing quality health services and ensuring patients’ rights and freedoms. To eradicate the long and faulty tradition of unofficial additional payments for services, we will eliminate its cause through the promotion of additional voluntary health insurance that will put an end to the interest in official payments to medical professionals. We will also educate the public by reminding them that systematic unofficial payments lead to an opposite result where service without payment is for some reason not delivered with appropriate quality, speed and safety and is even delayed.
Lithuania ranks among the last European countries according to the GDP share allocated for health. In 2009, Lithuania introduced a health insurance tax (separate from the personal income tax) and a uniform health insurance contribution of 9% from income earned, increased the subsidised contribution from LTL 428 to LTL 605.30 (by 41.35%) for persons insured with State funds, enlarged the list of payers of health insurance contributions and tightened controls on the collection of contributions. However, all these measures have failed to ensure the collection of sufficient funds. To allocate the existing resources more fairly and attract additional funds for the health system, we will prepare and approve a concept of the development of additional (voluntary) health insurance that promotes the functioning of compulsory health insurance already in place. We will also seek to formalise a uniform system of premiums that will allow eradicating unofficial payments.
Although primary health services are by 5 to 6 times cheaper than hospital care, almost 80% of the current personal health care services in Lithuania are hospital care. This is due to the fact that family doctors fail to fulfil part of potential services within their competence and refer patients to specialists. Therefore, to reduce the waiting lines with family doctors and medical advisers and to improve the availability of services, we will enhance the family doctor institution and other aspects of primary health care. Despite the reduced budget of the Compulsory Health Insurance Fund, we will implement this task without cutting the funds for health, by way of enlarging the scope of the family doctor competence and granting more functions to nursing professionals.
Legislation of the Republic of Lithuania regulates certain requirements for individual economic operators to start and run a business. The issue of different permits and certificates is often a drag on business development. Therefore, we will draw up amendments to laws on the activities of groups of individual operators that would simplify the requirements for start-ups and reduce the amount of paperwork without exacerbating public health. To achieve the efficient use of human resources and State funds and to avoid any duplication of functions, we will also optimise the network of specialised public health establishments under the Ministry of Health.
We will build and develop e-health services for residents, patients, health care establishments and specialists, using the State budget funds for health efficiently. We will ensure a transparent and efficient use of Community funds. We will be committed to increasing the role of non-governmental organisations through their involvement in the delivery of personal health services.
These only are a few key tasks planned by the Ministry of Health, and there are many more of them waiting to be done. I invite you to show an active interest in our work and express your opinions on draft and applicable legislation, as well as on relevant matters of the health care system. The current website will always welcome you to read our news and comments from competent specialists, advice on healthy lifestyles and interesting discussions. That is why I once again invite you for communication and cooperation!
Raimondas Šukys
Minister of Health
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