Another Putin Healthcare ‘Optimization’ – Junior Medical Personnel Now to be Allowed to Act as Doctors

Paul Goble

    Staunton, May 1 – Both to deal with the increasing shortage of doctors – a shortage now estimated at 23,000 – and to save money for military spending, the Russian government has decreed that as of September 1, paramedics and midwives will be allowed to perform the duties that up to now, only fully trained doctors have been allowed to.

    While many paramedics and midwives are extremely talented and experienced, experts fear that this will have an adverse impact on public health in the Russian Federation, especially in rural areas far from  major cities (novayagazeta.eu/articles/2025/04/30/mozhet-li-feldsher-zamenit-terapevta-ili-pediatra-a-akusher-ginekologa).

    The decision as to which paramedics and midwives may perform “doctor” functions will be exclusively in the hands of the senior doctor in the local medical point, the health ministry says, an arrangement that will provide some minimal protection but won’t prevent the Russian authorities from putting ever more patients the hands of underqualified medical personnel.

    Training doctors takes far longer and costs far more than preparing paramedics and midwives. The latter can do many things as well as doctors in the case of normal illnesses, but they are ill-prepared to deal with special cases and thus may not be able to get those in their care the treatment they need.

    Again and like the massive closing of medical points in rural areas, this latest shift will reduce the costs to Moscow but impose far higher and more fateful ones on Russians, especially those who live outside the capital and other major cities. It is not impossible that this will spark protests, but the Putin regime has shown itself more than willing to suppress them.