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Address
by H.E. Mr. Islam Karimov,
President of the Republic of Uzbekistan,
at the opening session of the International Symposium
The National Model of Maternity and Childhood Health
Protection in Uzbekistan: Healthy Mother - Healthy Child
Dear Mrs. Director-General,
Distinguished participants of the symposium,
Ladies and Gentlemen!
It gives me a great pleasure to welcome you, our distinguished guests,
the representatives of the high-profile international institutions -
the World Health Organization, UNICEF, the UN Development Program and
the UN Population Fund, the public health administrations of many
countries of the world, all the participants of the symposium, and
express my deepest respect to all of you.
This unique complex of buildings the construction of which was just
recently completed, embodies the best samples of national and modern
architecture and city building art, consists of the two main parts:
the National Public Library and the Palace of Symposiums, where we
have gathered today. The very fact that the first guests we are
receiving in this grand hall are you, the participants of the present
International Forum devoted to the most humane and noble sphere of the
human activity, i.e. the maternity and childhood health protection, -
acquires to much extent a symbolic and historical significance.
Taking this opportunity, I would like to express to you, dear Mrs.
Margaret Chan, and to all of you, dear guests, the words of a sincere
gratitude for accepting our invitation to take part in this Forum.
It is a great honor and high privilege for us that with Your
participation, Mrs. Chan, as well as the participation of outstanding
foreign scientists and medical scholars of authority we are going to
discuss the Model of maternity and childhood health protection
developed in Uzbekistan as the most important integral part of the
ongoing nation-wide healthcare program and upbringing a healthy and
harmoniously brought up young generation.
The motto or the principle “Healthy Mother - Healthy Child” which
gained a common recognition in its essence served as a consolidating
and mobilizing appeal to the people and became a particular priority
raised to the state and public level.
Certainly, we did comprehend that achieving the set goal was possible
only on the basis of deep reforming and modernizing the entire system
of the public healthcare.
Today we have all grounds to state that during the years of
independent development it has been created a practically capital
foundation on which we continue building and renewing our country's
public health system.
Firstly, it has been formed a principally new and in its way unique
integrated system to render a free and highly qualified emergency
medical aid to the population. It consists of the specialized regional
hospitals and branches in the cities and districts that meet the
highest requirements and international standards, as well as the
emergency medical care services. Their activities are managed and
coordinated by the Republican Scientific Center for Emergency Medical
Aid.
Secondly, setting up more than 3200 rural medical stations plays an
extremely significant role in the course of reforming the system of
public healthcare and enhancing its lower level. I want to draw your
attention that we are not speaking about the rural first-aid and
obstetric stations, as they exist in other countries, but about the
stations supplied with the high-tech medical equipment and where the
first medical aid is rendered by the general practicing physicians.
Thirdly, we have streamlined the network of healthcare institutions on
the district and regional levels and set up compact and well-supplied
with the cutting-edge equipment and skilled personnel district-level
medical associations and regional multi-field hospitals and
polyclinics.
Fourthly, at the moment there are 10 republican specialized scientific
and practical medical centers operating on the basis of the acclaimed
scientific schools of cardiology and cardio-surgery, midwifery and
gynecology, urology, ophthalmology, pulmonology and phthisiology,
endocrinology and others, where we concentrate a highly-qualified and
professionally trained personnel who render the highly-tech medical
service using the modern equipment.
All these years we have channeled our efforts, primarily, to creating
the conditions for the birth and to nurture a healthy generation to
achieve the long-term effect, i.e. maintaining and improving the
nation’s gene pool, raising the life expectancy and living standards
of our people. It is natural that to reach this aim we had to
accomplish an enormous work, including the one to change the
psychology and mentality of the people.
In particular, to develop healthy family and reduce the number of
possible cases of hereditary diseases in the country we have
introduced the system of obligatory pre-marriage medical examination.
If to consider this aspect broadly, I would like to specially
underscore that such values as the moral climate and morality in
society, especially, among youth, as well as the attention being paid
to strengthening family, sustainability and solidity of family ties
have always been and now are highly valued in our country. I think
there is no need to prove to someone that this factor, i.e. the
healthy family and healthy atmosphere in the family plays an enormous
role in the birth of a healthy child.
Today the prenatal and mother and child screening centers are
functioning practically in all regions of Uzbekistan. At the expense
of the state budget all pregnant women in the rural areas are supplied
with polyvitamins essential to develop a healthy fetus.
I would specially like to draw your attention to establishing the
network of the modern mother and child screening centers in the
framework of a special state program. Their work has allowed to reduce
since 2000 the birth of children with hereditary and inborn diseases
to more than 1,7 times.
In our country we conduct a free vaccination of all children under 2
and this made us possible to completely eliminate such diseases as
diphtheria, tetanus and polio. Practically 100 percent of children
under 14 are covered by a comprehensive medical examination twice a
year and the fertile age women go through this procedure annually.
During the last 20 years as a result of implementation of a set of
measures the maternity and childhood mortality rate in our country has
decreased to more than three times. In the global rating of 161
countries released this year by the International organization “Save
the children” Uzbekistan secured the top 9th place among the states
where the young generation's healthcare is better provided.
The training of highly-qualified medical personnel is the most
important aspect in reforming the sphere of healthcare.
At the moment, along with the Tashkent Medical Academy there are
medical higher educational institutions operating in such centers as
Samarkand, Andijan, Bukhara, Urgench and Nukus.
We have introduced a principally new approach in organizing training
of nurses with a higher education degree.
I would like to specially emphasize that our medical institutions work
in close cooperation with the leading foreign medical establishments,
such as the University clinics of Charité (Germany), Harvard (USA),
Manchester (Great Britain), Vienna (Austria) and well-known centers in
Russia and the Ukraine, as well as major hospitals of Japan, South
Korea and other countries.
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It gives me a great pleasure to welcome them and on behalf of the
participants of the Forum present in this Hall to express my sincere
gratitude to them.
Such an enormous attention paid in our country to the public
healthcare is bolstered with, primarily, the investments and inputs
made to the development of this sphere.
The share of expenditures channeled to the public health sector in the
state budget makes up 15,7 percent and its share in the GDP - 4,1
percent.
Within the past period more than 700 million dollars of soft loans and
grant assets of donors have been attracted to improve the logistics of
the healthcare system and provide it with modern equipment and medical
techniques alone.
Despite the ongoing global financial-economic crisis, during the last
three years the volume of financing the sphere of public health has
grown to 2,5 times.
I would like to briefly dwell on the issues related to free and paid
medical services.
In Uzbekistan the entire primary medical aid for the population is
free. The emergency medical and pediatric aid, obstetrics and the
services to treat a number of socially vital diseases such as
oncological, communicable and others, are rendered on the same basis.
At the same time, we all well comprehend that the modern quality
medical aid is based on expensive equipment which needs a constant
upgrading, as well as expensive medicines and medical products, and
this factor, in its turn, puts on the top of agenda the acute issues
of reasonable combination of free and paid medical treatment.
Today we have all grounds to state that the life itself has confirmed
the Tightness and efficiency of the chosen model of healthcare in
Uzbekistan. I will make only one example. Since 1991 we have managed
to raise the average life expectancy from 67 to 73, including the life
expectancy of women - up to 75.
Our experience proves that the reforms of healthcare is a permanent
and uninterrupted process. Both the medical science and practice are
constantly progressing and this finds its reflection in our national
model of public health.
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Nowadays we are starting to implement the tasks of a new phase of
reforms during which we will have to complete optimization of the
public health institutions network and gradually re-supply them with
cutting-edge equipment. We are planning to considerably improve the
logistical, scientific and practical basis of the specialized medical
centers, turn them into joint-stock companies, introduce the
mechanisms of encouraging medical personnel of the centers and raising
their accountability for the end results.
For these purposes at the expense of various sources in few years we
shall mobilize the assets worth more than 1,5 billion US dollars in
equivalent. And we are perceiving this work not only as a major factor
of raising the welfare and strengthening the people's health, but also
as one of the key indices of our economy's growth and sustainable
progress of society.
Dear participants of the Symposium!
I am confident that the results of our International Forum in the
final outcome will facilitate implementation of the Millennium
Development Goals. Since for everyone the opportunity to live a long
and healthy life stands as a principal indicator of human happiness.
In conclusion, I want to note that in the core of all our achievements
in the sphere of public health, which we can be rightly proud of,
above all, there are knowledge, experience, professionalism and skills
of many thousands of medical workers - the doctors and nurses,
scientists and specialists, and all those who by their tireless and
selfless labor grant a human being health and save the people’s lives.
As they say, there are two professions in the world blessed by God:
the first is a profession of teacher and the second is a profession of
doctor. For all of us a doctor devoted to his noble mission and daily
expressing his best human qualities is an example of unselfish service
to the higher ideals of humanism.
Speaking from this high rostrum, I would once again like to express my
sincerest appreciations to you and in your person to all
representatives of this noble profession. I wish you a fruitful work,
fine stay on the hospitable land of Uzbekistan, as well as a sound
health and many successes in your further endeavors.
Thank you
for your attention.
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