More people are dying in Russia thanks to the latest healthcare reforms
In a new audit of federal spending, Russia’s Accounts Chamber says the country’s program to optimize healthcare is a failure, finding that “the anticipated rise in healthcare’s efficiency and accessibility has not occurred.”
According to the new report, optimizing healthcare led to a 2-percent increase in the mortality rate at state hospitals in 2014. This figure rose in 61 regions across Russia. In 49 regions, mortality rates went up, despite a decline in the number of patients treated.
Russian policymakers had hoped that optimizing healthcare would lower the country’s mortality rate to 12.8 per 1,000 people. Instead, last year’s mortality rate reached 13.1 per 1,000 persons.
Auditors also found that there are 17,500 localities in Russia with no healthcare infrastructure whatsoever, and at least 11,000 populated areas are more than 20 kilometers (12.5 miles) from the nearest medical services where there is a doctor.
According to Accounts Chamber, the number of health workers in Russia dropped by 90,000 last year. These cutbacks, the audit says, “are being carried out without prior planning or consideration for the possible consequences.”
Despite the fact that “optimization” proposes actions that are supposed to improve the healthcare system on the whole, the measures actually carried out have been limited to reductions, reorganizations, and cutbacks of personnel and services, leading to a decrease in the availability of medical care and poor results at public hospitals.
- In November 2014, demonstrators in Moscow carried out a series of protests against cutbacks at local hospitals. The largest of these rallies attracted about six thousand people.