Today, President of Latvia Egils Levits had a virtual meeting with Ilze Aizsilniece, President of Latvian Medical Association, Artūrs Šilovs, Chairman of the Board of Latvian Junior Doctors Association, and Dita Raiska, President of the Latvian Nurses' Association, to discuss the need to pass new Cabinet of Ministers regulations regarding the pay of healthcare professionals (pay reform), which would introduce new pay scale for healthcare workers and improve the healthcare sector efficiency.
Mrs Aizsilniece, Mr Šilovs and Mrs Raiska gave President Levits an update on what is happening in the sector in the context of envisaged reform. They expressed the sector’s concerns that the reform plan, which took several years to be agreed and required long-term engagement of professional associations, could potentially be postponed and adjustments in the next year’s budget that are required to meet reform targets will not be made. Artūrs Šilovs said that if there is no dialogue, tensions related to next year’s budget and its discussions could rise in autumn, and healthcare sector might be forced to take action if reforms are delayed.
Egils Levits underlined: ‘We expect modern states to be capable of producing integrated solutions and long-term plans. This applies to healthcare, as well. Medium term budget should be based on the same approach’. President also indicated that the reform needs to be discussed and approved by the cabinet members and ‘it should be properly funded in the long run. We must also boost public awareness about good health being one of the contributing factors to good living standards here in Latvia’, said President Levits, underlining that it would require Latvia to allocate bigger share of its GDP for healthcare from the national budget.
Mrs Aizsilniece emphasised that we need a modern approach in healthcare management, a patient-centred healthcare model. Reform should also provide for a more balanced funding model with respect to specific treatments and diseases.
One of the main challenges of this reform is to offer a common vision for the development of the whole sector without favouring any specific group of healthcare professionals. Reform plan must provide new pay scale, improvements in healthcare system and upskilling scheme for healthcare professionals.
President of Latvia pointed out that ‘it is important for the healthcare system and for the patients to end the past practices when healthcare funding was provided on ad hoc basis to fill the gaps. Maybe there are stakeholders who benefit from such lack of transparency, but it is also clear that the time to get the system in shape, and do so consistently, has come’.
President stressed that envisaged reform is rather complex and many experts have worked on its content. He thanked all healthcare associations for their contribution to the reform plan and debate with experts from the Ministry of Health.