The publication before you Mapping Family Doctors from Primary Healthcare in Macedonia, results from a process that HERA conducted in 2021 to determine which and how many opportunities there are to use the competencies of family medicine specialists to improve access to sexual and reproductive health services.
This is especially important considering that currently, family doctors represent 21% of the total number of registered (selected) GPs, but also that in the last 3-4 years there is a decreasing trend of number of doctors who acquire this title.
Taking into account the findings and recommendations for systemic solutions that resulted from the analysis of healthcare for sexual and reproductive health that we conducted in 2018, in 2019 the minister of health established a List of health services according to which specialists in family medicine can also provide certain sexual and reproductive health services.
Assessments from the mapping, which applies to the entire territory of Macedonia, indicate quite solid willingness of family doctors to provide services that basically represent a certain type of counselling (prevention of breast and prostate cancer, family planning, gender-based violence, sexually transmitted infections, sexual problems, menopause, PMS and menstrual health), as well as services for pregnant women (screening and prevention for gestational diabetes mellitus and urine testing). Confidence in one’s own competences for prescribing therapy (contraception) and for infertility is lower, and the readiness for what is meant by medical intervention, i.e. services related to vaginal examination (taking a swab for a PAP test, counselling related to cervical cancer) is the lowest.
The publication is available in Macedonian language at this link.
