Next year’s health budget to earmark money for stimulating healthy lifestyle: minister

YEREVAN, October 7. / ARKA /. Armenia’s health minister Derenik Dumanyan told ARKA news agency today that next year’s health budget will earmark an amount for stimulating healthy lifestyle.

"I think stimulating a healthy lifestyle is very important, and I think the release of money to that end will give a new quality to our approach to this issue," the minister said on the sidelines of a conference on the problems of reproductive medicine in Yerevan. The minister did not specify how much the budget will earmark for this. 

According to him, even in richest countries health ministers are not satisfied with the amount of government spending on health. “I am not happy either, but even with this small amount we need to determine our health protection priorities, which I think should be child and mother health, as well as preventive measures,’ Dumanyan said.

The conference is discussing ways to improve the demographic situation in terms of reproductive medicine.

"We are primarily interested in the latest techniques used today in the world for the treatment of infertility,” he said.

Dumanyan stressed that the existing problems in Armenia are basically similar with the global problems -low birth rate and high rates of infertility.

According to the National Statistical Service, birth rate in 2012 increased by 2.3 % to 42,333 compared to the previous year, exceeding the mortality rate by 1.5 %. .-0-