Troika sees major reforms of health system

Major progress in reforms of the health system are recorded in the evaluation of the island’s international lenders – the Troika – while the next goal is the implementation of reorganisation and autonomy of public hospitals as a prerequisite of the National Health Scheme (NHS), the finance ministry announced on Saturday.

According to new time frames given by the technocrats, the announcement said, the bill on public hospital restructuring and autonomy will be tabled to parliament by the end of June, while the NHS is to be implemented in 2017.

The ministry appears to be satisfied with the evaluation of its progress on health reforms.

“Based on the new content of the memorandum, the significant progress achieved during the period since the previous evaluation is visible,” the announcement said.

It outlined the removal of a measures relating, inter alia, to review the existing policy of providing free health care to beneficiaries, the preparation of legislation and the completion of economic studies for public hospitals to operate under an autonomous system, the pharmaceutical policy review, setting up an international support group by the World Health Organization (WHO) at the Health Ministry to oversee the reforms, the completion of studies by the WHO for the new organisational structure of hospitals and operating a national health insurance plan via multiple insurance organisations versus through a single purchaser.

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