“Informal” approach: Tatarstan citizens asked to define immediate tasks of healthcare ministry

The vote for priorities in medicine starts this week

The ministry of health is discussing the aims of work for the next year with Tatarstan citizens. The responsible work has been assigned to the Public Council under the ministry, which has recently announced the list of 20 issues and tasks for public discussion. For example, reducing mortality from cardiovascular diseases, increasing emergency teams, prevention and treatment of oncology, etc. All residents of the republic are invited to discuss the problems of healthcare. The opportunity to vote is provided on the portal of public services. Read more in the material of Realnoe Vremya.

People should vote on issues they understand

From 23 October, experts of public councils began to form proposals on priority areas of work of the ministries of the social sector. The composition of the groups for each ministry was determined by the Public Council of the Republic of Tatarstan. Among the experts, there are representatives of professional, academic communities and NGOs, professionals.

The Public Council under the Ministry of Healthcare has practiced this form of work since 2018. Then 6,000 Tatarstan citizens voted for urgent issues for medicine for 2019. It was necessary to choose five items, but two more agendas aroused great interest among the residents of the republic, so it was decided to expand the programme of goals and objectives to seven items. Similarly, the experts decided to build the work this year, they proposed 20 issues, which were discussed on 23 October at the meeting of the Public Council. All the stated tasks were approved by those present at the meeting, but with the proviso that it was necessary to finalize the wording.

“We always cause the people's discontent, when we themselves use the formal presentation. What is the ‘new model?” Director of Dispatching Centre at the Ministry of Healthcare of Tatarstan Rostislav Tuishev spoke out on the first agenda.

The council supported him — it is necessary that people understand the essence of the problems on which the Tatarstan medicine will pay special attention to in the near future. This item provides for an increase from 18 to 64 patient-oriented medical organizations (“new model”), what is known as “friendly”.

Rostislav Tuishev spoke in favour of the amendment in the second question: it is impossible to force patients to make an appointment with a doctor using an electronic registry, but it is necessary to create conditions for up to 70 per cent of the population to use the modern service.

Ambulances must arrive faster, and deaths from diseases must be reduced

In 2018, the president of Tatarstan announced the involvement of residents of the republic in the work of ministries.

“The population should be involved in determining the tasks of the ministry of healthcare — it was in the air. And to form a list of the main, important issues, we gathered a group of experts for this pilot project. Last year, when the goals and objectives were posted on the website for discussion, we saw that people have an interest in such interaction, 6,000 people responded,” said the Chairman of the Public Council under the Ministry of Healthcare of the Republic of Tatarstan Chingiz Makhmutov.

That figure covered by the survey population is expected to grow from 1.8 million to 1,861 million people, and that we need more children to cover medical examinations, one could not argue, as with the fourth question, which proposes to increase the number of visits of mobile medical teams away from 10,000 to 27,000. The Public Council also approved the fifth issue — the share of repaired stationary objects in Tatarstan should exceed 35 per cent. It is necessary to continue to reduce mortality from diseases of the circulatory system and from neoplasms by 3,3 per cent (580 people per 100,000 population) and 1,2 per cent (193 people per 100,000 population), respectively. And the mortality rate of the working-age population should be reduced by 0,7 per cent (up to 416 people per 100,000 population).

Experts agreed that it is necessary to increase the staffing of polyclinics by doctors to 84 per cent, and the average medical staff — to 88,9 per cent with a compatibility ratio of 1,2. Doctors noted that this ratio is now significantly reduced, before it reached the level of 1,8. There are plans to increase the number of doctors with a qualification category. According to experts, it is necessary to make ultrasound examinations and endoscopic examinations more accessible to the population, reducing the period of planned waiting for patients in the regions of the republic to 14 days. The Public Council considers it important to reduce the waiting period for a specialist in the provision of planned outpatient care — it should not exceed 14 days. And the number of emergency medical teams that arrive to a patient in less than 20 minutes should rise to 89,5 per cent.

The experts proposed to provide mammographic examination to 12,000 women aged 50-69 years, to make sanaviation more accessible, as well as to increase the satisfaction of the population with the quality of medical services.

In the next few days, experts will finalize their proposals, and at the end of the week, all 20 questions are to appear on the service “Surveys of Residents” of the portal of state services of the Republic of Tatarstan. Online voting will last a month. The population can offer its variants of tasks for the executive power. After the vote, the Public Council under the Ministry of Healthcare of the Republic of Tatarstan will approve from 5 to 7 issues with the highest number of votes as a programme for action for the ministry.

The project also provides for public reporting to the population. The ministry of healthcare of the Republic of Tatarstan publishes reports on the website on a quarterly basis. At the end of the first half of the year, employees of the ministry with experts of the Public Council discussed the interim results of the tasks in the industry. Early next year, they will assess the implementation of the 2019 programme.

By Ekaterina Ablaeva
Tatarstan