HUMAN RESOURCES MANAGEMENT IN HEALTHCARE SYSTEM OF UKRAINE AND WORLD: CURRENT CHALLENGES

Abstract

Topicality. Global trend of reducing the number of doctors and nurses has put the health status and organization of health care under significant threat in many countries, especially those with low development indices. Importance of this process is growing in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic due to possible reduced access to health care. Materials and methods of research. We have performed the analysis of the data of the Center for Medical Statistics of the Ministry of Health of Ukraine for 2009–2019. Also methods of systematic approach and epidemiological analysis were used. Aim of the study. Assess the sufficiency of medical staff in healthcare facilities of Ukraine in comparison with world and European indicators and identification of the relevant risks. Results. Currently, Ukraine ranks 38th in the European region in terms of the number of doctors and nurses. Such a negative trend in dynamics of healthcare personnel is accompanied by a reduction of training of doctors and nurses since 2017. According to the Center for Medical Statistics of the Ministry of Health of Ukraine, on December 31, 2019, medical care was provided by 184,713 doctors of all specialties and 296,054 junior medical workers with medical education in healthcare facilities of all forms of ownership. This is much less than in 2010, when there were 224,876 doctors and 428,667 nurses and laboratory assistants. Thus, only in 2019 the number of doctors has decreased by 2,056 people, and nurses — by 17,288, which is significantly more than in the period of 2017– 2018. According to the WHO Annual Report there are approximately 16 doctors and 38 nurses per 10,000 people worldwide. For every 10,000 inhabitants of the European region there are 34 doctors and 82 nurses on average. The ratio between doctors and nurses in Ukraine is lower (1: 2.4 on average) than in Europe (1:1.9 on average) and has a clear downward trend, in particular due to a decrease in the training of nurses in medical colleges and schools, migration processes from border areas (2016). Conclusions. All of the above requires urgent policy decisions to fix the human resources situation in healthcare system and prevent the risks of deteriorating health care. Without stabilization of the situation with the medical personnel and restoring the proper amount of training and retraining of medical professionals, medical care will become problematic and the fight against epidemics of infectious and non-communicable diseases will not end well for humanity.