Sociologists: the population of Russia overpays for medical services

Journalist Pavel Pryanikov gives curious data on the state of modern Russian medicine in his channel:

“The covid epidemic has exposed health problems in Russia. One of the main ones is the huge sector of paid medicine in the Russian Federation, which already significantly exceeds this level for the EU countries.

Sociologists Aleksandrova and Komolova from the Institute of Socio-Economic Problems of Population of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the Moscow City University of Management of the Moscow Government even before the pandemic, in 2018 conducted an expert survey, the participants of which were physicians with practical experience in the field of organizing and managing health care (Population, No. 4, 2018). It turned out that the working conditions of medical organizations have radically changed, and the volume of attracted extra-budgetary funds became an important indicator of their effectiveness. Some of the experts' answers during the study:

"In our country, the funds that the population spends on medical services and medicines make up 36% of all health care costs. In other countries, including the new EU countries, the average is 20%. That is, our population has already given the last. Therefore, it will either run into catastrophic expenses for family budgets, or refuse medical assistance".

"Even the private sector, although it is growing now, understands that there is nowhere to grow further. What good is it that you are fruitful if people have no money? The system has long been beyond the limit (we already have 50% of investments in health care - from the pockets of the population, and the limit, according to WHO, is 20%): we do not know how many people die without medical care at all, which is really very much reduced..."

"The problem of underfunding is aggravated by the complexity of financial flows, as well as incorrectly selected priorities for spending funds. We have created centers that consume 42% of all allocations. The whole world is trying to treat patients in the early stages with cheaper methods, but we have removed the primary link".

"In recent years, in real prices, health care costs have decreased by 10%. At the same time, disproportionately large resources were spent on combating infant mortality, although it is only 0.16% of the total mortality rate".

"The Ministry of Finance, when he saw how much money is needed to increase the salary fund for health workers, said: “I don’t have that kind of money, let the health care system reduce its ineffective expenses - beds, doctors”. Unfortunately, our healthcare organizers were unable to prove to the Ministry of Finance the absurdity of these reductions. But it was not possible to raise salaries to the level they wanted. Half of the health workers work more than 60 (!) Hours a week; one third of doctors receive salaries lower than in 2012.

"Three years ago in Moscow there was a shortage of 25% of district therapists. After that there were only reductions. In the regions, the situation is no better. According to complaints from patients, everything is so - the availability, especially of specialized care, is decreasing".