ArmInfo.Today at the hearings in the Parliament, Armenian Healthcare Minister Arsen Torosyan explained the difference between corruption and shadow turnover, stressing that in both cases, these phenomena should be eradicated from all sectors of public life.
"When the hospital director spends money received from the state not for the patient's needs, but puts it in his pocket, this is corruption. And when the patient is asked for money for medical services, this is a shadow turn," the Minister explained.
At the same time, the Minister emphasized that the patient should not make any illegal payments for medical services. As Torosyan noted, it is this fact that causes discontent among patients, and not the quality of medical services.
According to Torosyan, to ensure that there is no financial relationship between a doctor and a patient, you need to take a number of measures, one of which is the introduction of insurance. "Until the insurance system is implemented, we need to reduce the shadow turnover in hospitals to a minimum. For example, to bring the amounts paid by the state under the state order to the real cost of the procedures for which they are paid," the minister stressed.
Torosyan also noted that today the state can only compensate the full cost of treating certain diseases for a small number of citizens, but he hopes that over time, funding for the health care system will increase, and the state order will cover more patients and a wider range of diseases. "This will significantly change the current situation in the healthcare sector," the Minister concluded.