Tozik wants Belarusians to pay for healthcare

The country's deputy prime minister thinks Belarusians should pay for doctor's visits.

“We need to carry out a deep system optimisation, to significantly review grounds for calling a doctor, visiting polyclinics, calling an ambulance,” Anatoly Tozik said Wednesday at a meeting of the Board of the Health Care Ministry, Interfax reports.

“All decisions on the issue should be prepared and adopted within 6 months. The existing rules either don't work or work badly,” he underlined.

“Is it normal if a person visits a doctor 200 times a year? He goes there as if it's his job. And we have to service him. What a budget can afford it?” the deputy PM said.

He noted healthcare wastes from 20% to 40% of spendings, according to the data of the World Heath Organization. “I think it's true for Belarus too,” Tozik supposed.

The deputy PM proposed that “people should co-finance free medical services they get”. “People don't understand the real cost of medical services. We have a population of almost 10 million people. Material goods are produced by 2.5 million people, who have to feed the rest 7.5 million. It creates a welfare mentality and confidence that looking after one's health is a duty of the state and doctors, not of a person,” Tozik said.

We remind Lukashenka recently spoke about a possible introduction of the fee-for-service healthcare system. The dictator thinks “Belarusians don't value their health due to free healthcare”.