Paul Goble
Staunton, Sept. 16 – Putin’s healthcare “optimization” has already slashed access to medical care in many parts of the Russian Federation, but his need to save even more money in that sector to pay for his war in Ukraine has eliminated two programs that were supposed to improve healthcare overall, Novaya Gazeta says.
On the one hand, the paper says, the reduction in the number of hospitals and medical points has not led to an increase in salaries for doctors and nurses and so the flight of such personnel from the sector has accelerated still further (novgaz.com/index.php/2-news/3769-«старых-в-больницы-уже-не-берут»).
And on the other, Moscow has suspended plans to develop a network of telephone medicine that would allow people in areas with limited medical facilities to speak with doctors elsewhere. That means that in such places, many can no longer hope to see doctors either face to face there or speak with them via telephones.
Just how serious an impact that cutback has had, Novaya Gazeta continues, is highlighted by the contrasting situations in the Russian Federation and Kazakhstan along their common border. In the Russian Federation with its healthcare optimization stripped of a telephonic medical network, deaths are skyrocketing; while in Kazakhstan, the situation is much better.
The government has not cut back but rather expanded its network of hospitals and medical points; and Astana is, with the help of France, creating a nationwide telephone medical network to allow for consultations. As a result, death rates are falling far more rapidly than in neighboring parts of Russia.
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