Liashko outlines priorities of work as health minister
Viktor Liashko, who has been appointed by the Verkhovna Rada to the post of the Minister of Health of Ukraine, called overcoming COVID-19 the priority of his work and outlined the areas of the Ministry's activity.
"I will not make a sensation, saying that the top priority for me is to overcome coronavirus disease. We will do everything possible so that Ukrainians could get vaccinated, work, and travel ... By the end of 2021, everyone, who wants to be vaccinated against COVID-19, will be able to do so,” Liashko said at the Verkhovna Rada, an Ukrinform correspondent reports.
He also stressed that the priority of the Ministry of Health would be the biological safety of the population. In particular, by the autumn it is planned to review approaches to responding to radiological and chemical threats.
In addition, Liashko pointed out the need to establish domestic production of immunobiologicals and said that the Ministry of Health would determine the list of critical medicines and offer a sustainable state order for them so that investors could deploy capacities for their production in Ukraine and provide medicines for the domestic market on a priority basis.
In addition, according to Liashko, it is planned to expand the Affordable Medicines program, to introduce additional payment to hospitals for the achieved treatment result, not for the fact of hospitalization. It is also planned to approve a number of new industry standards by the end of the year.
As reported, the Verkhovna Rada dismissed Maksym Stepanov from the post of Minister of Health at an extraordinary meeting on May 18. Stepanov headed the Ministry of Health since March 30, 2020.
Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said that it was difficult to call effective the work of Minister Stepanov in the area of vaccination against COVID-19.
The Verkhovna Rada Committee on Public Health, Medical Assistance, and Medical Insurance recommended that the Parliament should appoint Liashko as the Minister of Health.
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