Evolution of healthcare policy in Ukraine: main stages and challenges

Abstract

During the period of independence, Ukraine has been in the process of developing its own model of healthcare, seeking to ensure a balance between social justice, economic efficiency,
and accessibility to medical care under conditions of significant socio-economic differentiation of the population. At various stages, attempts were made to introduce individual elements of the main global models of health care systems and their financing. The political conditioning of the reforms was determined by a set of factors, including the deterioration of the medical and demographic situation, Ukrainian society’s perception of access to medical care as a fundamental social right, the rising cost of medical technologies, the struggle between social groups of different political, professional, and economic interests, as well as the need to respond to large-scale crisis challenges, primarily the COVID-19 pandemic and the full-scale war. The proposed periodization takes into account not only changes in financing models, but also the impact of political decisions, institutional conflicts, and external crisis factors on the evolution of state policy in Ukraine’s healthcare system.