Trust in family doctors remains high despite critical assessments of healthcare reform – survey

en.interfax.com.ua · Feb 27, 2026 · Collected from GDELT

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50.5% of Ukrainians said they had not seen any improvements after the medical reforms (in particular, the introduction of the National Health Service), 24.7% reported improvements, and another 24.8% were undecided. At the same time, 64% of respondents said they had encountered unofficial payments in medical institutions, and 52.2% considered the medical system to be corrupt (another 44.3% considered it to be “partially corrupt”). This is according to the results of a survey conducted by the research company Active Group using the SunFlowerSociology online panel. Active Group Director Oleksandr Pozniy noted that against the backdrop of more critical assessments of the reform, people often separate their trust in a particular doctor from their trust in the system as a whole. "We can say that family doctors, especially those who have been specifically and consciously chosen, are trusted. It is quite a common situation when people may not trust the system, but trust a specific doctor they know. At the same time, reform exists when it changes everyday experience, and although some changes have taken place, there is still dissatisfaction with this reform," he said at a press conference at the Interfax-Ukraine agency on Friday. According to the study, Ukrainians most often assess the state of the healthcare system as “average” (54.6%), “rather poor” (18.7%), or “very poor” (7.2%); 2.9% said “very good” and 16.7% said “rather good.” At the same time, the level of trust in family doctors remains relatively high: 29.5% of respondents said they completely trust them, 61.9% said they partially trust them, and 8.6% said they do not trust them. The survey also identified problems with access to medical care and resources at the local level. In particular, 23.8% of respondents believe that it is “very easy” to get a consultation with a family doctor, 55.1% say it is “easy,” 18.1% say it is “difficult,” and 2.9% say it is “very difficult.” Only 10.1% responded that their local hospital has “enough” modern equipment and medicines, 45.8% said “somewhat enough,” and 32.4% said “no.” In addition, according to respondents, the wait time for an appointment with a specialist exceeds one month in 11.5% of cases, lasts 2–4 weeks in 19.8% of cases, 1–2 weeks in 28.4% of cases, and up to one week in 40.2% of cases. Active Group founder Andriy Yeremenko attributed some of the negative assessments to the scale of direct household expenses. "In fact, we see that more than 90% pay for treatment in one way or another, although medicine is formally free. If you don't have insurance, you still pay — either for medicine or for procedures. Therefore, the issue of financial accessibility remains key for most families," he said. According to the survey results, in 2024–2025, 68.2% of respondents said they paid for medical services or medicines themselves on a regular basis, 25.1% said they did so occasionally, and 6.7% said they did not pay. At the same time, 20.9% reported spending more than 20% of their family budget on medicine, another 23.2% spent 11-20%, 39.8% spent 5-10%, and 16.1% spent less than 5%. Maksym Urakin, PhD in Economics and founder of the Experts Club information and analytical center, commenting on the survey data, said that high proportions of healthcare costs affect not only well-being but also economic stability. "As an economist, I want to emphasize that medicine is an integral part of a country's economic stability, and when healthcare costs erode family budgets, it affects consumption and people's ability to recover. In international monitoring methodology, it is considered catastrophic if a person spends more than 10% of their budget on medicines. And here we see a sign of a serious financial burden," he stressed. Separately, participants drew attention to the dynamics of medicine prices and the effectiveness of compensation mechanisms. Thus, 52.3% of respondents said that the prices of medicines they buy regularly had “increased significantly,” 43.9% said they had “increased slightly,” 3.6% said they had “remained unchanged,” and 0.2% said they had “decreased.” Regarding the state program for reimbursement of the cost of medicines, 13.1% of respondents said they use it, 70.6% said they do not use it, and another 16.3% said they have heard of it but have not used it. Among those who received medicines under the program, 24.7% said they received them free of charge, and 75.3% said they paid extra. Grigory Soloninka, a member of the board of the Kyiv Regional Organization “VULT” and professor at the Kyiv Medical University, believes that the pandemic and full-scale war have significantly influenced the perception of the reform, but there are also “positive elements.” “To a certain extent, there are reforms: there are positive aspects and there are negative aspects. But this negativity was largely influenced, first of all, by the pandemic, then by the war — that is, our reforms began, perhaps, at the wrong time. But there are positives from these reforms, and we see that there is a good program for people over 40, screening,” he said. The survey also separately assessed the impact of the war on the availability of medical services: 48.1% of respondents reported that they felt access had deteriorated due to the war, 36.9% said no, and 15% were undecided. Respondents identified the outflow of medical personnel (60.3%) as the most acute problem in healthcare during wartime, followed by the destruction of infrastructure (22.7%) and a shortage of medicines (13.4%). The survey was conducted on February 11–12, 2026, using a self-administered questionnaire, with a sample of 1,000 respondents aged 18 and older throughout Ukraine, excluding temporarily occupied territories. The theoretical statistical error is up to 3.1% with a 95% confidence level.