Patients Association asks for deferment from mobilization for cancer specialists

“Without morphologists, cytologists, geneticists, it is impossible to make a diagnosis and figure out what treatment is indicated. Without radiologists, medical physicists, oncosurgeons, chemotherapists, it is impossible to get treatment”, - said Irina Borovova, head of the Zdravstvuy association, member of the Human Rights Council under the President of the Russian Federation (quoted from Kommersant).

The Association fears that due to mobilization there will be no specialists left in Russia, which will affect the quality of oncological care.

State Duma deputy Oleg Leonov also called for the release of specialists in the manufacture of prostheses from the mobilization. Andrey Konoval, co-chair of the Deystviye medical workers' trade union, believes that medical workers should not be taken from where there is a shortage of personnel, primarily in the countryside. He also announced the preparation of an appeal to the government. Yan Vlasov, co-chairman of the All-Russian Union of Patients, agreed with the problem of a shortage of qualified personnel in the healthcare system.

“During the pandemic, doctors with narrow qualifications, on whose training the state spent a lot of money, for example, hand surgeons, oncologists, were sent to work in the covid zone, to the point that they worked as assistants to infectious disease specialists. As a result, we still got an increase in mortality, but not from covid, but from cardiovascular diseases, oncology and other chronic diseases”, - said Vlasov.

According to him, during the pandemic, the domestic healthcare system has lost more than 100 thousand doctors.