Maternity Care Certificates as a Tool to Reduce Informal Payments for Publicly Funded Services: Russian and Armenian Experiences Compared

Ukhova, D. (2011) Maternity Care Certificates as a Tool to Reduce Informal Payments for Publicly Funded Services: Russian and Armenian Experiences Compared. In: 9th Annual ESPAnet Conference Sustainability and transformation in European Social Policy, Valencia, 8-10 September 2011,

Abstract

As recent research in a range of CEE/CIS countries suggests, maternity care users in those countries face a serious burden of informal payments associated with receiving publicly funded services (e.g.: Hungary (Gaal, 2006); Russia (Rivkin-Fish, 2006); Albania, Moldova, Ukraine (UNFPA, 2010)). In this respect, policies recently introduced in Russia and Armenia appear particularly interesting. The Childbirth Certificate programme introduced in Russia in 2006 and the Obstetric Care State Certificate introduced in Armenia in 2008 represent the first maternity care policies in which national governments of the countries of the region expressed their commitment to tackling the problem of informal payments in this sphere of health care. In both countries, the „certificate‟ represents a document which all pregnant women legally residing in the countries are entitled to receive, and which they subsequently are expected to hand over to those maternity care facilities where they receive maternity care services. The certificates are publicly funded and are meant to serve as a source of additional funding for maternity care services, thus substituting informal payments. Regardless of their seeming similarity, these programmes so far have had substantially different results. While after first three years of implementation, Armenian programme appears to be highly effective, Russian programme has failed so far to solve the problem of informal payments for maternity care services. Employing the theory of „inxit‟ developed by P. Gaal and M. McKee (2004), this paper compares the two programmes with the purpose of understanding the underlying cause of the differences in the level of the programmes‟ effectiveness.

• Item Type: Conference Proceedings
• Status: Published
• Refereed: Yes
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: Ukhova, Dr Daria
• Authors: Ukhova, D.
• College/School: College of Social Sciences > School of Social and Political Sciences > Sociology Anthropology and Applied Social Sciences