Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan held a consultative meeting to discuss ways of enhancing the purposefulness and effectiveness of medical services.

“Healthcare financing is the focus of today’s discussion. Our task is to find such solutions as will ensure that no Armenian citizen in need of treatment remains outside the hospitals. The problem calls for a twofold approach: first, we must achieve cost-efficiency and second, which is a strategic issue, we need to make a transition to the health insurance system so that the State should not have to intervene in individual cases, and we have an automated scheme functional in this field. Of course, it seems to be clear that this should entail additional expenses for the State; our task is to provide funding for any such expenses. This is our political task and duty,” Nikol Pashinyan said, adding that the government needs to understand how the problem could be tackled and find clear-cut solutions.

“For the next stage at least, we have set the task of providing medical insurance for vulnerable citizens so that they could have access to full or specific reasonable packages of medical assistance,” the Premier said.

Healthcare Minister Arsen Torosyan touched upon the services provided by the State, the problems faced in this area, the possibilities for their solution and the medical assistance financing mechanisms. As the Minister pointed out, the shortage of financial means leads to unnecessary queues, which is a serious problem for those citizens in need of immediate surgical intervention or medical care.

Arsen Torosyan stressed that in this case, the health insurance system is considered as one of the most effective mechanisms for solving the problem, and went on to note that today’s civil servants insurance system has proved to be quite effective, in general. The Minister stressed the need to discuss in due course the possibility of making a full transition to the insurance system.

The meeting next discussed issues related to healthcare funding mechanisms and sources, as well as the problems of socially unsecured citizens. The Prime Minister instructed those responsible to review the proposals in all detail and report back the findings.