Tajikistan is moving towards a more effective health benefit package, which will make essential health services more accessible to the entire population while providing financial protection, especially to the poorest and most vulnerable households. The future, revised package will improve the efficiency of Tajikistan’s health system and will be instrumental for the country to move towards universal health coverage (UHC).
During a high-level roundtable event, followed by a 2-day national workshop on health financing and governance, it was agreed that the future health benefit package needs to further prioritize primary health care, including cost-effective health services, which the population needs most. As a next step, decision-makers from parliament, the Ministry of Health, Ministry of Finance and Ministry of Economic Development and Trade, together with key development partners, agreed to develop a roadmap, which will guide the revision of the health benefit package.
The Government of Tajikistan is currently implementing ambitious health system reforms with the aim of improving access to quality health care for the entire population. WHO provides technical support to strengthen the overall health system and move towards UHC.
Effective health benefits package
The roadmap will push the implementation of the health system reforms to improve health financing in Tajikistan. An effective health benefits package is instrumental in ensuring anyone can access good quality health care without experiencing financial hardship.
Tajiks often face high costs when seeking health care, especially when they need to purchase medicines. In the WHO European Region, Tajikistan is one of the countries with the highest out-of-pocket expenditures, resulting in high rates of catastrophic and impoverishing payments. The country faces a high burden of disease as a result of both communicable and noncommunicable diseases (NCDs). The current health benefits package provides insufficient access to health services that would help people to prevent and manage these diseases.
The high-level roundtable and workshop were jointly organized by the WHO Country Office in Tajikistan, WHO Barcelona Office on Health Systems Financing, WHO/Europe NCD Management Programme and WHO/Europe Access to Medicines and Health Products Programme.
WHO is able to support the Government of Tajikistan to move towards UHC as part of the Health Development Programme, funded by the European Union.