ArmInfo.Within the next month, a package of legislative changes in the field of medical and social expertise (ITU) will be submitted to the government court. This was announced by the Deputy Minister of Labor and Social Affairs of Armenia Smbat Saiyan on February 20 at a press conference.
According to Saiyan, as of January 1, 2018, the number of disabled people in Armenia was 193,302 people, out of whom 8231 children were disabled. Compared to January 2017, the indicator decreased by about 13 thousand people, which is due to the activities carried out in the past year, aimed at clarifying the law enforcement practice in the ITU area. For those who, on the basis of the results of the second ITU, were not recognized as disabled and left the list of persons with disabilities, in 2017 a pilot program was tested - about 220 citizens were given the opportunity to undergo treatment in the framework of state orders. "If the ITU has shown that the citizen now does not have the necessary degree of limited life to recognize him as disabled, at the same time, having realized the need to receive appropriate medical care, the person was sent to the medication," the deputy minister said, stressing that the budget is capable of curing about 500 citizens, but, nevertheless, not everyone wanted to participate in the program.
To date, as Saiyan pointed out, Armenia has taken the path of active reforms in the sphere of recognition of disability, including the conduct of medical and social expertise. Under the instruction of the Prime Minister of Armenia to simplify the passage of medical and social expertise, the agency prepared a package of proposals that should lead to an increase in the effectiveness of the system. In this context, relevant draft legislative acts will be sent to the government in the near future.
The main logic of the legislative initiative of the Ministry, as explained by Saiyan, in fact, is to clarify the responsibilities of both the health system and social protection. In this context, it is planned to significantly improve the quality of the organization of the citizens' direction to ITU. At this stage, the procedure is carried out in accordance with the established procedure by territorial outpatient clinics. The package of legislative changes provides for strengthening control over the process, as well as simplifying the procedure for passing medical and social expertise. The general logic of the formation of ITU commissions will also be revised - the members of the commission formed on the basis of random selection from the relevant bank of specialists will replace permanent territorial commissions. The composition of the commissions, as well as the venue of the ITU, will change permanently. "Thus, for each ITU a new commission will be formed," the deputy minister explained. In addition, if earlier, the person who made the disability was forced to collect a huge stack of health documents, soon all the necessary documentation will be collected from the Health system as ITU passes. At the same time, a so-called user map will be implemented - a document containing information on the state of human health and species, and the degree of disruption of functions. This information in the document will be brought by doctors from one of the medical centers. "We plan to provide full transition to the new system from January 1, 2019," Smbat Sahyan said. As the expert admitted, the very phenomenon of ITU presupposes a subjectivity factor. Nevertheless, the Ministry hopes that a number of tasks in the ITU clearance process can be solved by carrying out reforms and increasing the objectivity of the entire system. Presently existing tasks, according to Sayyan, are caused by imperfect procedures for sending citizens to ITU. For this, according to the Deputy Minister, it is necessary to establish clear legislative adjustments to the sphere, defining the scope of responsibility of its participants throughout the chain. The next task for the system is the lack of classified information about the state of health of a citizen. The problem is planned to be solved within the process of digitizing the process and introducing the standards of the international classification of functioning, the limitations of the vital activity of WHO. Based on the results of the improvement of electronic infrastructures, the Ministry also hopes to solve the task related to the low level of controllability of the system. Earlier, on February 15 during the regular meeting of the country's Cabinet of Ministers, the head of government Karen Karapetyan stated that the current regulations in the sphere of medical and social expertise are unsatisfactory. The prime minister noted that in the process of ensuring the targeting and fairness of services rendered in the sphere of social protection services, the commission conducting medical and social expertise plays an important role. Despite the earlier measures, as Karen Karapetyan noted, the current regulations and the effectiveness of these commissions are unsatisfactory. In particular, as the head of the Cabinet pointed out, the activities of the commissions do not minimize the impact of subjective factors. In addition, the procedure for registering a disability group is incomprehensible and unpredictable, since the system for organizing and monitoring the process for recognizing a citizen as an invalid is inadequate. With this in mind, Karen Karapetyan instructed the Minister of Health Levon Altunyan and the Minister of Labor and Social Affairs Artem Asatryan to jointly develop in the government apparatus of the republic within a month's time the proposals aimed at qualitative changes in the sphere of medical and social expertise. According to the head of government, the issue was preliminary discussed with the ministers. "The plan of action they propose will fundamentally change the quality in this sphere, so I'm sure that within a month we will be able to establish new rules of the game in this area," the premier concluded, noting that several times the experts raised the question, that the sphere is traditionally controversial and very "seductive" in terms of corruption risks.