Deputy Prime Minister Berdibek Saparbayev, speaking during a recent conference call, instructed government bodies to create a regional schedule for compulsory health insurance coverage, increase the population’s employment, improve medical institutions’ technical bases and raise public awareness about compulsory medical insurance, reported The Astana Times with reference to primeminister.kz.

“The main task is to correctly and in an accessible form convey information, clarify innovations in the social sphere and respond promptly to citizens’ questions. People need to have it explained that this year the volume of government support for low-income families with children, taking into account the social package, has increased,” he said.

Family support centres should operate in large cities in each region, following the example of the Zhanuya centres in the capital and Bakytty Otbasy centres in Almaty. In both cases, people can receive necessary advice and assistance, he added.

Support centres for large and low-income families are currently open in seven regions. Approximately 368,000 large families were paid a social allowance this month, according to Vice Minister of Labour and Social Protection of the Population Yerlan Aukenov.

The ministry is continuing to receive documents from citizens applying for targeted social assistance. To date, the government has accepted applications from 24,000 families and 116,700 individuals. The requests include 4,497 families from Shymkent, 4,098 from Turkestan and 2,702 from the Almaty Region.

More than 2,600 precinct commissions operate in the country and more than 1,000 people have used the call centre services, Aukenov added.

Medical organisations are not completely ready to integrate information and payment systems and train specialists to implement compulsory medical insurance, said Minister of Healthcare Yelzhan Birtanov. The deputy akims (governors) of the Kyzylorda, Mangystau and North Kazakhstan regions, the capital and Shymkent have been updated about the issues.

Matters such as insufficient outreach, lack of reference materials and poor employee department technical equipment should be solved, said Aukenov.

“The akimats (regional and city administrations) need to tighten control over the work of precinct commissions to prevent corruption risks,” he added.

Saparbayev spoke about the need to create a special commission including parents receiving targeted social assistance to obtain feedback on the quality and content of social packages.

President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev instructed the government to implement new approaches to targeted social assistance, provide a guaranteed social package and introduce compulsory social health insurance. 

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24.01.2020 09:53