Putin’s ‘Optimization’ Policy and War in Ukraine have Made Doctors and Nurses among the Most ‘Protest Prone’ Groups in Russia, Expert Says

Paul Goble

Staunton, Aug. 25 – Putin’s healthcare optimization policy has reduced the number of hospital beds by 20,000 a year over the last decade even as his war in Ukraine has placed ever greater demands on Russia’s healthcare system and the doctors and nurses who work in it, Sasha Fokina says.

That combination has made these medical workers among the most overburdened and underpaid professionals in that country, the feminist activist and political analyst say, and made them among the most “protest prone” of all groups there (posle.media/article/healthcare-in-wartime-how-womens-labor-is-changing).

These protests typically take the form of petitions, media campaigns and meetings with officials rather than with the more politically risky demonstrations, Fokina says, because other than emigration, Russia’s health workers can’t change jobs easily and thus are trapped by the system.

According to research she cites, in 2025, social and labor conflicts in the healthcafre sector accounted for 62 percent of all such clashes; and in 2026, healthcare is among the top three conflict-prone sectors, even though repressive measures have reduced the number and overall share.

One of the reasons Fokina has focused on this issue is because women dominate the medical professions in Russia, forming 70 percent of all doctors and 95 percent of all nurses, and because they have suffered the most from Putin’s policies which are exactly the reverse of what they should be in wartime.

In order to keep fielding an army, she continues, the Russian government should be providing the medical system with more funding and medical staff with higher salaries; but instead, Putin has cut back both, increasing suffering not only among patients but also among doctors and nurses.