Kazakhstan plans to change approaches to financing polyclinics that have shown poor performance for several years. This decision was announced at a government meeting dedicated to the quality of medical services in primary healthcare, reports infohub.kz.
Aida Balayeva, Acting Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Culture and Information, noted that special attention will be paid to medical organizations that systematically receive patient complaints. In the first half of 2026, with 62 million visits to polyclinics, 2,925 complaints were received.
Kazakhstanis most often expressed dissatisfaction with the availability of specialists, the appointment process and patient routing, medical ethics, follow-up care, and drug provision.
The largest increase in complaints was recorded in Mangistau Region — 4.3 times. In East Kazakhstan Region, the figure rose 2.6 times; in Karaganda Region, 2.3 times; and in Akmola Region, 2.1 times. In Astana, the number of complaints doubled.
Special task forces will be created in the regions, involving doctors, maslikhat deputies, and members of public councils. "They must conduct a detailed analysis of the activities of public and private polyclinics, as well as hospitals, study the reasons for complaints, and submit proposals regarding medical organizations that systematically demonstrate poor service quality," the government said.
Balayeva instructed to pay special attention to the situation in Mangistau, East Kazakhstan, Karaganda, and Akmola regions, as well as in Astana and Almaty. "For each of these regions, a separate analysis of the reasons for low performance must be presented," she said.
Following inspections, separate measures will be prepared for medical organizations with low performance. In addition, the system for assessing the quality of medical services will be updated, and incentives for the best polyclinics will be strengthened. If the measures taken do not yield results, managerial and personnel decisions may be made regarding the heads of problematic medical organizations.
The Ministry of Health notes that over the past two years, the duration of a district doctor's appointment has been increased from four to six hours. This has reduced the waiting time for an appointment from seven to one to three days. Also, some medical services have been transferred to electronic format: sick leave, prescriptions, and 13 types of medical certificates are now issued online.
The government also noted that Kazakhstan is improving the system of incentives for medical workers. The average size of incentive payments was 600,000 tenge, which is 15% more than in 2024. This year, more than a thousand districts received payments exceeding 1 million tenge for achieving set targets. Additionally, additional payments for continuous work experience are being introduced.