The Government has established basic guarantees of the minimum wage for medical professionals for 2023

The government has established financial guarantees for medical professionals. In 2023 the minimum wage for a doctor, pharmacist and rehabilitation specialist is not less than UAH 20,000, and for a nurse is not less than UAH 13,500. This is only the minimum wage guaranteed by the state for medical professionals. 

Guarantees for the payment of basic wages will apply to those medical institutions that have contracts with the NHSU under the Program of medical guarantees, while their salary fund with accruals for the current month should not exceed 85% of the monetary income received in the current month, taking into account the accumulated balances.

For primary care doctors and nurses who work with them, the condition for receiving the above-mentioned salary is at least 70% of the optimal number of concluded declarations with patients. 

“This year the main focus of the state budget, of course, is defense. But despite the reduction in funding for the medical guarantee program, we managed to maintain financial guarantees for medical workers at the level of at least UAH 20,000 for a doctor and UAH 13,500 for secondary medical workers. I would like to emphasize that the government has set only a minimum wage, below which full-time medical professionals cannot receive. However, each manager can additionally award employees who perform their work efficiently,” Viktor Liashko said. 

The above-mentioned salary level is not fixed and can be increased by the head of a healthcare institution by establishing surcharges and allowances, taking into account the complexity, responsibility and conditions of the work performed, the qualifications of the employee, and the results of their work.

Since hospitals became independent enterprises, the responsibility for allocating the hospital budget and rational use of funds has been assigned to the head of the medical institution. In turn, they should be the effective manager who directs most of the budget to provide medical professionals with decent wages, while leaving funds for the purchase of medicines and the development of the institution. 

“It is optimal when a medical institution allocates about 70-85% of its total budget to the salary fund. Medical institutions should have funds to cover medicines, nutrition, and hospital development. Then we can be sure that the hospital works efficiently and provides high quality and free services to Ukrainians,” the Minister of Health added. 

He also emphasized that medical institutions that allocate 100% of their budget to pay salaries do not have the resource to purchase medicines and medical devices, and therefore these costs fall on the shoulders of the patient. Thus, inefficient hospitals may violate the main right of the patient to receive free and high-quality medical care, which contradicts the contract with the National Health Service of Ukraine. In particular, monitoring of the quality and free provision of medical care will be carried out in 2023.