The Deputy Minister of Health and Social Protection of the Population of Tajikistan Aziz Odinazoda participated in and delivered a speech at the 7th Conference of Health Ministers of the Organization for Islamic Cooperation (OIC) in Abu Dhabi, UAE.
Aziz Odinazoda spoke about general coverage of medical services in Tajikistan. He stated that in the recent years Tajikistan pays great attention to the goals of universal coverage of health services through improving the quality of health services and the accessibility of the population to it.
“The government of Tajikistan in collaboration with development partners has developed and adopted a number of national strategies and programs that reflect these initiatives. In particular, the National Population Health Strategy of Tajikistan for 2010-2020 includes all of the issues relating to the improvement of medical services and reforming the financing of the health care system,” he informed.
It was noted that in 2016 Tajikistan joined the World Health Organization and the European Union joint project on universal service provision.
“Currently, Tajikistan’s needy and vulnerable population is divided into privileged groups in order to strengthen the State Guarantees Program to provide health services. Also, a list of priority services was developed and included in this Program for 2020-2030. This initiative ensures that the needy population of the country is provided with preferential services that reflects the universal coverage of medical services,” said Aziz Odinazoda.
Aziz Odinazoda informed the conference participants that Tajikistan’s population has access to quality and modern medical services at the level of primary health care and hospital services.
He added that medical education reform was implemented on a primary health care basis and is being realized on a pilot basis. Introduction of medical education will help to increase the capacity of specialists in the field of primary health care.
It was also informed that today there are 4 283 family physicians in Tajikistan, representing 80.3% of the total needs, and 7,704 nurses in the field of family medicine, accounting for 72.2% of the total requirements.
It should be noted that Tajikistan joined the OIC since 1992, and during this period was able to establish contacts with the majority members of this Organization, in particular the Arab countries.
The cooperation between the Ministry of Health and Social Protection of the Population of Tajikistan and UAE relevant agencies was established within the Intergovernmental Commission on Economic, Trade and Technical Cooperation. The directions of bilateral cooperation will be discussed within this Commission.
Also, in order to develop further cooperation with the UAE the Ministry has developed the project Agreement between the governments of Tajikistan and the UAE on Health and Social Protection Cooperation and agreed it with the relevant ministries of the country. The document is currently under consideration of the UAE side.
