‘There are No Medicines but Try Treating Yourself’ – What Doctors in St. Petersburg are Now Telling the Sick during Pandemic

Paul Goble

            Staunton, December 6 – Another aspect of Vladimir Putin’s healthcare cutbacks known as “optimization” surfaced today when Russians even in major population centers like St. Petersburg were told that no medications are available to them and that they should try to treat themselves as best they can (svpressa.ru/society/article/283728/).

            Even as he cut back medical facilities, the Kremlin leader was more concerned with ensuring that domestically produced medicines would form at least 50 percent of the total that he undercut any chance that Russia would produce enough medications of the right kind or even new medicines for the population (severreal.org/a/30984668.html).

            That is because it was far easier for Russian pharmaceutical companied to meet this planned quota by producing only a limited range of medications than by producing all those that are in fact needed, an echo of the Soviet planning system in which shoe producers met “the plan” by producing only shoes for left feed.

            When Russia could easily purchase drugs produced abroad, that was not such a terrible problem because Moscow could compensate for domestic shortcomings by buying what it needed from foreign sources; but when sanctions and especially counter-sanctions were imposed, that became impossible, and with “the plan,” Russians are suffering and dying.

            The pandemic is exacerbating this problem as it spreads to more regions and claims more victims (regnum.ru/news/society/3132609.html). Today, the Russian authorities registered 29,039 new cases, a record, and 457 new deaths, bringing those tolls respectively to 2,460,770 and 43,141 (versia.ru/v-rossii-vpervye-za-sutki-vyyavleno-29-039-novyx-sluchaev-zabolevaniya-covid-19-i-457-smertej).

            Moreover, even as Moscow Mayor Sergey Sobyanin predicted that his city, which is the first place where mass immunizations are taking place in Russia, would deliver shots to six to seven million people, experts suggested that even that won’t end the pandemic before the end of 2021 (regnum.ru/news/3133981.html, ng.ru/moscow/2020-12-06/2_8032_msk06122020.html and

https://echo.msk.ru/news/2753774-echo.html).

            There were two more signs that the pandemic is hurting the Russian Federation in particularly serious ways. The related economic crisis means that 700,000 more Russians, bringing the total to four million, are now banned from foreign travel because of excessive debts (versia.ru/vakcina-ne-kompensiruet-ushherb-nanesennyj-yekonomike-covid-19).

            And educational officials announced that in the last three months, 2500 foreign students have withdrawn from Russian higher educational institutions, depriving Moscow both of the funds they bring now and the potential influence they may have for Russia later when they return to their own countries (regnum.ru/news/3134014.html).