Ensuring the uninterrupted functioning of patients’ access to health services is the basic and the main obligation of the Minister of Health.
There have been 19 Ministers of Health during 23 years of Ukraine’s independence. This means that almost every year Ukrainian health care system was pulled into new direction. Because of this as well as of complete lack of the institutional memory the health care reform has not been possible during this time. Besides that, all the ministers and their deputies had been appointed by the quota principle of the political parties and not by the open competition. All of this had greatly hindered the work of the Ministry and contributed to the prosperity of corruption schemes within the Ministry, which have often been linked to the various political parties, oligarchic clans and officials of the highest level.
