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Center for Economic Research: Health insurance remains underdeveloped in Azerbaijan

31 March 2009 16:23 (UTC +04:00)

Baku. Aynur Veliyeva - APA-Economics. The Center for Economic Research (CER) held a press conference on a project so-called Monitoring of the First Phase of the Introduction of Compulsory Health Insurance.
The aim of the project, implemented with financial support from the Norwegian Embassy in Azerbaijan and organizational support from the Eurasian Foundation, is monitor the implementation of compulsory health insurance, to assess positive and negative points in this process, and prepare proposals on how to eliminate shortcomings.
The project coordinator Dunya Jamalova said AZN 4 million was allocated from the governments funds for introduction of compulsory health insurance in 2008 and AZN 50 million in 2009.
Despite this, the State Agency for Compulsory Health Insurance has not been established, the source of its funding has not been defined and its statute has not been approved, she said.
According to her, they conducted a survey of more than 20 local and international experts.
She said that questions were sent MPs, independent local and international experts and heads of medical institutions.
â€œHowever, the results of the survey found that respondents were not quite sincere,â€ she added.
In addition, 208 people were surveyed in Sheki region about availability, quality and other characteristics of health services.
The survey found several problems such as a shortage of personnel and lack of technical and financial support to medical facilities.
â€œAccording to the poll, despite the transition to free medical care, quality health care is still paidâ€, she concluded.
Suleyman Jabrailov, Medical Expert of Call for Health NGO Alliance, said that health insurance is poorly developed in Azerbaijan.
According to him, there is a need to increase budget funds, offer incentives to healthcare employees and raise awareness about health insurance.
According to the monitoring, the multioption financing â€“ or tripartite participation of state, employer and employee - is the most appropriate solution.
With regard to the basic insurance package, experts propose to include ambulance and emergency medical services to this package with an option to add free outpatient and inpatient services in the future.