ASTANA – Kazakh medical schools and colleges will begin in the next academic year to teach courses on healthcare issues and policies, Kazakhstan Yelzhan Birtanov announced May 3.
Birtanov said preparations to introduce the courses have been in the works for some time.
“A working group has been working on the introduction of these issues to this day: basic training programmes, bachelor’s and master’s programmes in general medicine and public health. Since the autumn of last year, we also have developed special refresher courses specifically to introduce the insurance policy programme. About 160,000 medical workers are to be trained and about 60 percent have been covered by now,” the minister said.
The announcement came amid questions from Mazhilis (lower house of Parliament) member Gulnar Bizhanova and Mazhilis Speaker Nurlan Nigmatulin.
“The law on compulsory health insurance was signed in 2015. Why haven’t the health insurance issues been included in the curricula of medical schools and colleges so far? When will this question be corrected?” Bizhanova asked the head of the health ministry during the hearing on the new bill that will further solidify the system of compulsory health insurance.
Nigmatulin also told the minister he felt it was important for medical professionals to be trained in health insurance issues from the beginning of their education.
The announcement follows the recent approval of Kazakhstan’s mandatory health insurance law which goes into effect January 2018. The lower house of parliament also approved May 3 amendments to the country’s health insurance law in first reading, clarifying contributions to the social medical insurance fund, the list of persons for which contributions to the fund come from the state as well as the list of payers of contributions to the fund.
