U-LEAD with Europe held an info session “Best International Practices in the Organisation of Medical Care at the Municipal Level: Practical Cases” to discuss the activities of nurses in Ukraine and abroad.
“Many participants of the event saw the work of healthcare facilities abroad, some practitioners had internships there. Our event aims to present the best cases of the organisation of medical care, which can be useful to municipalities,” said Halyna Khrushchak, Head of the Regional Office of U-LEAD in the Lviv Oblast.
The first part of the info session covered the work of a nurse in healthcare facilities in Poland and Finland. Yevhen Meshko, the external expert at U-LEAD, talked about the typical tasks of a nurse at the primary healthcare level. In Polish facilities, nurses are responsible for home visits to patients, immunisations and vaccinations, treating certain chronic diseases and prescribing medicines, determining the order of delivery of medical services, etc.
According to Yevhen Meshko, in Finland, the area of professional responsibility of nurses includes ordering and conducting diagnostic tests, in-depth physiological and psychological assessment of patients and their sorting. Finnish nurses must have excellent communication skills to make patients feel cared for.
The expert noted that many tasks coincide with those performed by nurses in Ukraine, but the approach is different.
“In Ukraine, mid-level medical practitioners are the largest personnel resource in healthcare facilities, and their capacity is underutilised. Our nurses are not autonomous team members but assistants to doctors. Very often, such employees exclusively do paperwork, which consists of the preparation of reports or certificates under the guidance of a doctor. In most cases, nurses are assistants to doctors, although their professional capabilities are much greater,” he said.
According to him, Ukraine needs to expand the powers and boost the role of the nurse at the primary healthcare level. This will make local health services more accessible and compensate for the shortage of family doctors that often occurs in small municipalities. In addition, it will reduce the burden on family doctors, who have a large number of patients and lack time.
“Nurses can expand their duties to include screenings, disease prevention and vaccination. They also have all the professional skills to conduct training among the population to promote a healthy lifestyle and combat chronic diseases. The legal framework allows for the provision of certain autonomy to nurses and expanding their responsibilities,” said Yevhen Meshko.