Disclaimer: This information is made available as a service to the public but has not been edited by the European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions. The content is the responsibility of the authors. In Lithuania, health care services are mainly provided by budgetary institutions which funding depends on the decisions made by the State. Similarly, two trade unions and one employer organisation functioning in the sector mainly represent public-sector employees and employers . The primary focus of these organisations is to negotiate with the government of the country, namely, with the Ministry of Health, in pursuit of the main objective – improvement of working conditions and wage increase in particular. 1. Key developments and trends in the health care sector 1.1 Please provide information on key trends in health care policy Though funding for health care was increasing until 2008, in Lithuania a share of GDP committed to health care has been one of the lowest in the whole European Union. At the same time, the number of hospital beds per population is the highest as is the patients’ network density, while primary health care link is too weak. Poor budget and high number of in-patient treatment facilities led to a situation when the Compulsory Health Insurance Fund was able to cover expenditure for health care services only at a very low level. As a result, patients eventually had to pay increasing amounts to cover the gap. This is the reason, among others, for a very high corruption index in the health care system in Lithuania.
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