During the Government session under the chairmanship of the Prime Minister Olzhas Bektenov the Concept of health infrastructure development for 2024-2030 was adopted. The Minister of Healthcare Akmaral Alnazarova made a report on its main directions. 

The document was developed on behalf of the Head of State and defines the main vision, principles and approaches to the development of the sphere in the coming years.

In the republic medical services are rendered to the population by 7 337 state objects of health care, of which 663 objects are stationary, 6 674 objects of primary health care. 

Over the past five years, more than 400 health-care facilities have been built and more than 36 per cent of them have been renovated. Medical equipment worth 261 billion tenge has been purchased. 

Of the 102,000 beds in medical organisations, 11,000 are used inefficiently. There is an imbalance in the availability of beds in the regions.

There is a deficit of 1,200 beds in children's institutions. There are not enough beds for pregnant women and women in labour, the deficit is more than 2 thousand units. 

"The Ministry has formed age-specific standards of the population's need for inpatient medical care with further calculation of the planned-normative number of beds per 10 thousand people by regions and bed profiles," the Minister of Healthcare reported.

According to her, there are disproportions in the areas of hospital accommodation, as well as the facts of exceeding the design capacity over the need. There is a shortage of design capacity of outpatient and polyclinic organisations.

Based on the results of the optimisation of the bed fund, work is planned to bring the infrastructure (network) of health care in line with the demands of the population of the regions, including taking into account the missing profiles of beds.

The Minister also noted that despite the 80 per cent level of equipment with medical equipment, the wear and tear of equipment remains high, which affects the quality of medical care.

"In the health care system, taking into account all departments work more than 270 thousand medical workers, of which more than 80 thousand - doctors, there is still a shortage of specialists," Akmaral Alnazarova said. 

All this indicates the presence of gaps, mainly in the system of health infrastructure planning and requires systemic measures in the following areas:

• Improvement of the institutional framework and introduction of standardised age-standardised norms for the consumption of inpatient care;
• Improvement of the system of equipping infrastructure facilities with modern equipment and technologies;
• improvement of the system for forecasting the availability of human resources, taking into account the needs of practical health care, as well as unification of social support measures provided to local  executive bodies.

In the first area, as the minister noted, the infrastructure planning process will be based on long-term forecasts of demographic indicators, morbidity rates and the structure of the population and will be in line with their needs for types of medical care.

The bed stock will be restructured and measures will be taken to bring the health infrastructure in line with the norms.

For effective implementation, the necessary regulatory legal acts will be adopted and a digital map of the healthcare infrastructure will be developed on the basis of the current information system, which will allow for rational planning, control and monitoring of the infrastructure in real time.

"The first stage of the Concept implementation includes the completion of design and the start of construction of the most key, systemically important healthcare facilities. These are 34 anchor projects with 11,440 beds. These include 6 university clinics, 14 hospitals, 11 perinatal and 3 national centres. Work on capital repair and equipment of other health care facilities will be continued," Alnazarova said.

At the second stage it is planned to continue modernisation of 2.5 thousand medical facilities through new construction, repair and retrofitting.

Efficiency of work of profile services in the regions will be achieved if republican scientific centres are strengthened. As part of the implementation of the Concept, measures will be developed to cover the shortage of specialised and emergency children's beds.

In particular, through the construction of the Centre for Children's Oncology and Haematology for 200 beds, the Centre for Children's Surgery for 200 beds, the Children's Building for 200 beds at the National Coordination Centre for Emergency Medicine in Astana, as well as the Centre for Innovative Surgery in Almaty 

These measures, according to the Minister, will increase the availability of highly specialised medical care to the population and strengthen the work of coordination councils on the basis of national research institutes and research centres.

The Concept also provides for equipping healthcare facilities with equipment for a five-year period.

"As part of the Concept implementation, a model for forecasting the need for healthcare human resources will be introduced and continuous professional development will be ensured. Measures will be taken to reduce the shortage of personnel, their legal, financial protection and social support, especially in rural areas," the Minister said.

As a result of the Concept implementation, the following results are planned to be achieved:

- reduction in the degree of wear and tear of health infrastructure facilities;

- reduction of the share of non-typical (adapted facilities) up to 20%; 

- increase in the equipment of health infrastructure facilities not less than 88% and provision of qualified medical personnel in accordance with the norms.

"Thus, we expect the formation of an optimal and effective network of health care organisations, based on the needs of the population, and ensuring high accessibility and quality of medical care," Akmaral Alnazarova summarised.

#Government session