MINSK, 18 July (BelTA) – Belarus should adopt the best solutions of other countries in a number of areas, Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko said at the meeting to discuss the state of affairs in healthcare as well as postgraduate training of medical professionals, BelTA has learned.
“Science and practice are very interdependent now, everything is internationalized, including healthcare. We should incorporate the best foreign solutions,” the Belarusian leader said. The head of state cited China as an example. China sends a small number of specialists abroad who then return home to implement what they have learned. “When they see that some country has advanced in some field of expertise, they send their people there. A student undergoes training here in Belarus and takes his/her knowledge back home. Under the leadership of the Communist Party they scrutinize these practices and decide what they can adopt. And this is what we should do,” Aleksandr Lukashenko explained. “If some Western models, Western standards can be of use to us (we say Western, though in fact today we can learn something from the East), we must embrace them. This is going to be the best training ever. We should select people for this,” he said.
At the same time, the president warned against mindless copying of foreign ideas. According to him, it is necessary to introduce the best practices from other countries taking into account national specifics without breaking the established system: “We don't need this, we have our own successful experience. If we break the system, it will be like with the Bologna process in education.” Back then the head of state warned against rushing to join the Bologna process, although many insisted on this, and today it turned out that there is no urgent need for this in Belarus. “Anyway, we keep working, and the flow of foreign students remains stable. Therefore, in no case should we copy anything. We should rely on our own systems as they have proved to be efficient for our country. We should not break them,” the Belarusian leader noted.
"Any innovations should be carefully thought out and should not create any risks," Aleksandr Lukashenko stressed.
Returning to the issue of postgraduate training and the draft decree, the president said: "If you prove to me today that it is impossible to do without it, then we will go ahead with it. But I urge you to understand what situation we are in (the situation is not easy, it is not known what the future holds for us). Understanding the situation in which we are living, we should do our best not to create problems for ourselves.”
Particular attention, according to the head of state, should be paid to how the introduction of a new form of postgraduate training for doctors will affect the healthcare system as a whole, individual hospitals, especially in the regions. “How will this affect the staffing of the sector? What prevents us from carrying out this modernization within the framework of the current clinical residency system? Will we lose the best achievements of the national medical school as we adopt foreign practices?", Aleksandr Lukashenko asked.
During the meeting, the president was also briefed on the development of the healthcare system, the government's actions to replace imports and provide medical institutions with everything they need, on the operation of hospitals and the availability of components for high-tech equipment, on the supply of medicines.
