Workshop to Drive Progress on Azerbaijan’s Health Care Reform
A recently held workshop, Concepts and Possible Directions for Primary Health Care Development in Azerbaijan, must drive progress on heath care reform, according to experts from the World Bank Health Sector Reform Project (HSRP). The workshop, which brought together government policymakers and country’s public health experts, was part of the USAID Primary Health Care Strengthening Project (PHCS), a huge reform-oriented initiative.
The focus of the PHCS Project strategy in Azerbaijan is strengthening primary health care. The workshop was produced as a forum for facilitating the creation of a vision for primary health care by government policymakers and development partners. During the course of the workshop, participants received a Project progress update and discussed policy, financial, and organizational arrangements necessary for streamlining efforts to achieve sustainable and tangible progress.
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| The workshop brought together government policymakers and public health experts to create a vision for primary health care in Azerbaijan |
Gulara Efendiyeva, an HSRP expert, was most interested in the family medicine portion of the discussions. In Azerbaijan, health care services are provided according to the former Soviet system, with an emphasis on specialists and in-patient treatment and a total lack of a holistic, family medicine approach. As a result, medical care in towns and cities flourish, while rural areas are underserved. Damilya Nugmanova, a guest speaker from the World Organization of Family Doctors (WONCA), shared lessons learned from the introduction of family medicine in Central Asian countries, which participants found useful.
“We see this system can work in Central Asia. In Kyrgyzstan, a mountainous country where majority of population is involved in agriculture and live in remote communities, the family physician becomes a best health care option. In Azerbaijan, there are also remote rural areas where a qualified general practitioner can make a revolution in existing health care,” explained Efendiyeva.
The cornerstone of the workshop was the presentation of the “Roadmap Paper for Primary Health Care Development,” a collaborative effort of the team of national professionals and international experts initiated by the Project. Efendiyeva believes that the cooperation highlighted in the presentation and fostered among workshop participants would boost the reform process.
“Now, when health reform is high on many policymakers’ agenda we need this kind of workshop to define the right direction for further primary health care development,” she noted.
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