Moscow Must Double Share of GDP It Now Spends on Healthcare Just to Return Mortality Rates to Where They were at End of Soviet Times, Nigmatullin Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, June 28 – Academician Robert Nigmatullin says that despite progress in medicine, 200,000 more Russians are dying each year than did at the end of Soviet times. That is creating serious labor shortages and thus harming the economy. And to get back to Soviet levels, Moscow must boost healthcare spending from four percent of GDP to 7-8 percent.

            “Mortality among the working age population is a colossal economic problem, the head of the Academy of Sciences Institute of Oceanography says. “In many spheres, we don’t have enough people.” But there is a lack of understanding of the link between this problem and healthcare spending (nakanune.ru/articles/120971/).

            And this socio-economic problem is only going to get worse because Russia can no longer import cutting edge medical advances but must come up with them on its own, something that other experts say will inevitably require spending even more money on medical science and healthcare delivery than would otherwise be the case.

            But instead of increasing spending in this area, Moscow is cutting back or misusing money allocated to healthcare on bureaucracy rather than actual healthcare, something that will almost certainly guarantee that in the future, mortality will rise further and the economy  will decline further as well.