Human Resources Are Key

The Akim of Pavlodar Oblast Bulat Bakauov held a meeting with the chief doctors of medical institutions in the region, discussing with them the problematic issues of the health sector. The Head of Oblast paid special attention to the issue of staffing.

The workshop was held in the regional health administration. The head physicians of all hospitals and clinics in the region attended participation in the meeting, held in the mode of video conferencing. As the Mayor noted, at the recent expanded meeting of the government Nursultan Nazarbayev set the task to improve the quality of medical services and develop the infrastructure in health care. “In order to improve the accessibility of the population to first medical care, work should be done to reduce the duty on one general practitioner to 1,700 people,” – said Bulat Bakauov. “In our area, this figure is 2042”.

As it turned out, there are 289 general practitioner centres in the region and by the end of this year, 58 more such centres are required to open, including 21 in Pavlodar, 16 in Ekibastuz, 13 in Aksu. At the same time, there are not enough specialists for medical care of the population. As explained in the management of health, most of those graduates of medical schools, which were counted on last year, went on to further study in residency. In addition, there are young professionals who have passed on maternity leave or left for another region for family reasons. They try to solve the problem with staff in every medical institution in their own way. For example, in Pavlodar polyclinic № 4 have already concluded an agreement with four young specialists after graduation. In addition, they plan to retrain two physicians into general practitioners. “Moreover, we plan to participate in job fairs,” – noted the Chief Doctor of the polyclinic Arman Otarbekov. – “Also, in order to retain young workers, we plan to pay them a down payment for a loan under the housing program “7-20-25.” Last year, in this way, we helped two of our specialists, with whom we concluded an agreement on working off for five years”. The Head of Oblast complained that the medical institutions rely only on university graduates, although you can invite an already practising doctor from another area to the clinic.

“The Chief Doctor himself must go to the southern regions of our country and invite specialists, offering them good conditions,” – said Oblast Akim. – “For example, if you need a specialist in the village of Kalkaman, today there are rebuilding four-story houses at the expense of the budget, in which you can allocate several apartments for doctors. You need to try all possible options to solve the problem”.

On the same day, Bulat Bakauov visited Pavlodar polyclinics number 1 and number 2, which a year ago passed into private hands. Patients in a conversation with the Head of Oblast noted that, after privatization, there had been changes for the better. First of all, the registries were updated in medical institutions, which have now become much more convenient. Secondly, according to visitors, the queues were reduced. In addition, I update medical equipment in outpatient clinics and there are offices of particular specialists who were not there before.

Photo by Valeriy Bugayev