The Social Affairs Committee sent amendments to the Health Services Organisation Act to first reading

NordenBladet —

The Social Affairs Committee of the Riigikogu (Parliament of Estonia) decided to send the Bill on Amendments to the Health Services Organisation Act and Other Acts to the first reading. The purpose of the Bill is to make the health care system more flexible and ensure better availability of general medical care. The Bill provides that from 1 July, general medical care will be organised by the Estonian Health Insurance Fund instead of the Health Board.

Chair of the Social Affairs Committee Siret Kotka said that the Bill would provide the possibility to ensure medical care in the situations where public competitions for finding family physician for a practice list have failed or a practice list unexpectedly remains without a family physician. “In the current situation, it is optimal that the local hospital will take the people who have lost their family physician under its care until a new family physician is found. The hospitals can keep a constant eye on the people, and this will reduce the burden of emergency medicine departments,” she explained.

Deputy Chair of the Social Affairs Committee Helmen Kütt stated that she supported the Bill. “It is a very good bill. Extending of the rights of nurses is especially welcome,” she said, pointing out that when the Bill would enter into force, specialised nurses would get the right to issue prescriptions on certain medicines like family nurses. The nurses will also be given the right to issue certificates of incapacity for work. “However, there is a concern about the arrangements for informing patients if the search for a family physician has been unsuccessful and the family physician service is to be organised by the hospital. And also how long is the notion “temporary solution”,” Kütt admitted.

The Health Services Organisation Act will also include the right of persons residing in Estonia on the basis of a residence permit and persons with health insurance legally staying in Estonia to register in the practice list of a family physician and to change a family physician on the basis of a written application. Besides that, the family physicians will be obliged to inform the persons in the practice list at least six months in advance if the place of business of the family physician changes.

It was pointed out at the sitting that half of the young doctors who had acquired the specialty of a family physician did not start working as family physicians with a practice list within five years after completing their training but worked in some other post as a contracted doctor. In order to encourage young doctors to start working as family physicians, they will be allowed to start with a shorter practice list so that a beginner family physician would have time for getting to know the patients and settle in.

From the Ministry of Social Affairs, Minister of Health and Labour Tanel Kiik also participated in the sitting of the Committee.

The Social Affairs Committee decided to send the Bill on Amendments to the Health Services Organisation Act and Other Acts (533 SE), initiated by the Government, to the first reading at the plenary sitting on 6 April, with the motion to conclude the first reading of the Bill.

Source: Parliament of Estonia