Review

Another medical reform was launched in Ukraine in 2023, which provides for the creation of a capable network of healthcare facilities within the hospital district. Reforming the healthcare sector, on the one hand, aims to reduce budget expenditures on healthcare. Still, on the other hand, there is a problem of maintaining the availability of medical care for the population. The author determines the purpose of the article to study the problems of ensuring the availability of medical care for the population during the approval by the Ministry of Health of Ukraine of a capable network of healthcare institutions. The author analyzes the requirements for general, cluster, and super-cluster healthcare facilities, their number, and structure in the capable network of the hospital district. Based on the above, the author concludes that there are risks of reducing the availability of medical care for the population in the areas of pediatrics, obstetrics, and gynecology, as well as cardiology because general healthcare institutions have an extremely small set of areas of medical care, which will not contribute to the availability of medical care. After receiving, for example, the help of a pediatrician, gynecologist, or cardiologist, the patient will be forced to go to a cluster institution that will operate within the district or to turn to private institutions. Therefore, it is important to expand the areas of medical care in general institutions by adding obstetrics and gynecology, pediatrics, and cardiology, considering the demographic situation in Ukraine and the mortality rate from cardiovascular diseases. Also, institutions of a capable network will receive priority funding, support, and development from the state. At the same time, institutions not part of the competent network agreed upon by the Ministry of Health will be forced to be financed either from local budgets or at the expense of paid services for patients, which does not contribute to the availability of medical care for the population. Now, the process of reorganizing healthcare facilities into general, cluster, and super-cluster institutions has only begun. Therefore it will be possible to assess the effectiveness of such a reform and the availability of medical care for the population within the hospital districts no earlier than next year.