Every fourth patient is disappointed with state-run medical institutions: Survey

The work of public health institutions was not satisfied by 23 percent of the country's population.

A quarter of the population of Lithuania feels dissatisfied with the quality of the services provided in state health care institutions. Such a trend is revealed by a poll carried out by Vilmorus. As the main source of disappointment in the health system, experts point to huge bureaucracy, long rows, and poor patient attention.

At the end of last year, a poll conducted by public opinion research company Vilmorus showed that the work of public health institutions was not satisfied by 23 percent of the country's population. For comparison, dissatisfaction with the work of private health care facilities is significantly lower and reaches only 8 percent.

Šarūnas Narbutas, Member of the Board of the Lithuanian Patients' Forum, visitors to medical institutions are the most disappointed with the long queue, the lack of knowledge about the necessary service, bureaucracy and poor communication skills of doctors and auxiliary staff. "All this creates a really bad image of a public institution, as per 15min.

According to 15min, people are much better off remembering when the services were struck when they asked a doctor, but there were no places where they wanted to ask something, but the doctor refused to explain. Negative things are remembered and forgotten that things are usually going smoothly. Now it's just fashionable to complain about the health system, "he says.

The situation is not undermining the president of the Lithuanian Doctors' Union (LGVS) Dr. Kęstutis Stara. According to him, the dissatisfaction with public health institutions is comparable to statistics throughout the European Union. "I think one of the most pressing problems is poor service availability. It takes a long time to get to the specialist, and the patient wants to get services here and now.

In addition, the workload of doctors and nurses is high due to health inequalities, the distribution of medical personnel and the lack of specialists, which is particularly relevant at the periphery, and workers are often overwhelmed. However, if we were to evaluate only the effectiveness of patient treatment itself, the dissatisfaction rates would, in my opinion, be lower, "he said to 15min.

The doctor notes that many problems are caused by inadequate funding. That is why a large part of the specialists leave, and those who have to deal with extremely high workloads. "This problem is most relevant in the primary care unit: family physicians, dentists, and psychiatrists. If adequate salaries are paid to doctors, workloads would be adjusted, there would be no need to go to work in other countries. In addition, often the patients themselves do not care about their health care, and if they have a full responsibility, they will be taken over by doctors, "Dr. K.Štaras.

Šarūnas Narbutas emphasizes that the ratio of patients and medical specialists would be considerably improved after the communication between medical institutions. According to him, 9 out of 10 disagreements between doctors and patients are due to lack of talk or lack of communication.

"I would say it's not so much a matter of management as the question of the culture and mentality of doctors. It seems to me that doctors perceive their qualifications only as a better knowledge of the new intervention procedure or the appointment of medication. But at the same time, very simple things are forgotten. In particular, so-called soft competencies, such as communication with the patient. This aspect is very often forgotten, although there is a lot of talk about its meaning throughout the world, especially in the Western countries, "says the Patient Forum Board Member to 15min

The public opinion poll was conducted by the Market and Public Opinion Research Center "Vilmorus". 2017 December 1-10 more than a thousand respondents aged 18 and over from all over Lithuania were interviewed.