Moscow's Plan to Boost Number of Doctors across Russia Won't Work Quantitatively or Qualitatively, Experts Say

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Jan. 15 – Since Putin launched his expanded war in Ukraine, the Kremlin does not see improving the health care of the Russian population as a priority; and the steps it has taken in this sector only give the impression that it is does, an impression that will quickly dissipate, Russian healthcare experts say.

            The new law that will require graduates of medical schools to go where they are assigned for three years will do little good and may even do harm, these experts say. On the one hand, the new doctors will be assigned to regions rather than smaller areas and so will concentrate in the capital cities there. And on the other, they won’t be supervised and trained as the law claims (regaspect.info/2026/01/15/goryachka-vmesto-strategii/).

            The additional doctors may allow officials to claim that they are addressing the shortage of medical workers, but in fact, in many places throughout the country and in numerous fields, that won’t happen both because people outside of the regions won’t get any more doctors and nurses who will then leave the profession and because those in the regions won’t get well-trained medical staff.

            Because of the commercialization of medical education in Russia since 1991, many graduates don’t have the skills they need and require close supervision to become good doctors and nurses. But the government is doing nothing to improve instruction at medical schools or to ensure that graduates will have much chance of getting the ongoing training they’ll need.

            This will soon be apparent even to even those who are currently enthusiastic about the new law because either they won’t have the doctors they need or the doctors available won’t have the skills needed to treat them adequately, those with whom the Regional Aspects portal spoke say.