Health Care System in Lithuania

It all begins, and ends, with health. A severe enough illness, and your life-long plans can be shattered in a moment. That’s why the health care system is one of the most vital organs of the organism that is a country. With the general dissatisfaction of our country’s citizens, obviously the conversation around our health care system is mostly negative. And while there’s plenty wrong with it, we may not have it just as bad as we think.

Firstly, the negatives. The 2017 Country Health Profile, released by the European Commission, gives loads of valuable information regarding the situation in our country. Lithuania’s expenses on health care per capita amount to about half of the EU average. The funds going to medication specifically are half of what’s given to health care services. This leads to a big portion of the citizens’, especially couples’ with children and the elderly’s, expenses being (spent) on drugs, with disastrous consequences to their fiscal situations. With mass emigration and the “brain drain”, more and more health care professionals leave the country, leaving medics here underpaid and overworked, with miscalculated instructions from above that can’t be executed. Doctors are expected to perform check-ups and prescribe medicine in mere minutes, and the queuing times for a single appointment are absurd, leaving everyone, from mothers with sick kids, to the severely ill in distress and without medical attention. There is also a lack of nursing professionals, and the medical field has become so corrupt, that nepotism and bribes for doctors and nurses have become the norm. This chaos in the sector is the reason our health care system today has such a bad reputation in the eyes of the people.