Social guarantees for healthcare professionals, funding for roads and national airlines, postponement of the merger of local courts

While Ukrainians discussed payments for vaccination amounting to UAH 1000 and the first part of the Wagnergate investigation, Verkhovna Rada adopted important and interesting regulations. It made the status of healthcare professionals working for private medical facilities equal to the status of healthcare professionals from public and municipal facilities if their treatment of COVID-19 patients led to their disability or death. It also distributed additional funding from the budget surplus.

Social guarantees for healthcare professionals from private medical facilities

Draft bill  #6192 of October 19, 2021

Status: passed as a law.

Who is affected:  healthcare professionals from private medical facilities, individual healthcare practitioners and their employees who treat patients with COVID-19.

Background: this year in June, Verkhovna Rada introduced insurance payments to healthcare professionals from public and municipal medical facilities that take part in fighting against the pandemic. The payments are made in case of health impairment or death of healthcare professionals resulting from COVID-19 consequences.

Summary of the draft bill:

• the insurance payments in case of health impairment or death resulting from COVID-19 consequences to the healthcare professionals from private medical facilities, individual healthcare practitioners and their employees
• expands payment guarantees to the cases when disability or death took place before the adoption of the law.

What is right: in many private medical facilities, healthcare services are publicly funded exactly as in public and municipal medical facilities. Therefore, the state has to make social guarantees for private family doctors equal to those of their colleagues.

What is wrong: the state should not expand the social guarantees to the healthcare professionals of private facilities or individual practitioners who provide paid services or are funded by the state within the state program of medical guarantees. Creation of safe working conditions and risk compensation at the workplace are a responsibility of the employer, not of the state or local government.

Alternative solution: to make the insurance of the professional risks of healthcare workers compulsory for private medical facilities and individual practitioners.

Additional funding for the infrastructure

Draft bill #6298 of November 8, 2021

Status: passed in the first reading

Who is affected: inhabitants of Ukraine, Ministry of Infrastructure, Ministry of Finance, State Agency of Roadways of Ukraine (Ukravtodor)

Summary of the draft bill: UAH 2.5 bln are provided due to exceeding targets of the state budget for 2021:

• UAH 1 bln from the Ministry of Finance as a subvention to local budgets for the implementation of projects of social and cultural infrastructure
• UAH 1 bln to Ukravtodor for the construction and development of national roadways
• UAH 0.5 bln from the Ministry of Infrastructure for the establishment of national airlines.

 

What is wrong:

• it is unlikely that budget holders will manage to spend the additional funding before the end of the budget period because the spending requires long public procurement procedures
• under conditions of war and pandemic the funding of the establishment of national airlines is not justified. The needs of neither defense nor healthcare are fully funded by the state. At the same time, at the air transportation market private service providers are competing against each other, therefore it does not require the presence of the state as an independent player.

Postponement of the merger of local courts until 2023

Draft bill #5387 of April 16, 2021

Status: passed as a law.

Who is affected: inhabitants of Ukraine, trial courts.

Background: last year in July, Verkhovna Rada merged the districts. Depending on the results of the merger, the state plans to establish a new network of state bodies in the regions. This includes local courts, which requires a merger of multiple courts into one, located in a new district center.

Summary of the draft bill:

• Postpones the merger of local courts from 2022 until 2023
• Allows the courts to administer justice next year without changing the local courts system.

What is right: it is impossible to merge the courts before the end of the year because it often requires construction, acquisition, or reconstruction of buildings. Therefore, the postponement of the merger is the only way to provide access to administration of justice.

Alternative solution: many new district centers do not have accessible facilities for the merged courts. Therefore, their establishment will require significant funding. It is possible that the merger of all courts will not be completed next year as well. So it would be reasonable to proceed with the merging gradually rather than in one year and to assess the current state of the infrastructure and the needs of construction, renovation, and acquisition of technical means.