Translated material
Cooperation at heart
Putin and Medvedev opened the first modular medical center
To gain access to modern treatment, hundreds of thousands of Russians will no longer have to pack their bags and travel to the capital. Expensive operations will be performed in 15 major Russian cities at once. And mostly free. Yesterday in Penza, the official opening of the first high-tech medical center finally took place - one of 15 new generation clinics, the construction of which is provided for by the priority national project “Health” . They had planned to ceremoniously cut the ribbon at the entrance to this cardiac center a month ago, but the ceremony was prepared for the participation of the first brave people of the state, in whose December schedule there was no place to demonstrate the latest achievements in the medical field.Yesterday, a whole delegation of the highest level arrived in Penza. President Vladimir Putin was accompanied by presidential candidate and First Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, Minister of Health and Social Development Tatyana Golikova and head of the Federal Agency for Health and Social Development (Roszdrav) Yuri Belenkov. The equipment and construction of the first hospital of its kind took place under the constant supervision of Mr. Belenkov. In mid-December, he visited the facility with an audit and gave the go-ahead to higher authorities: everything is ready, you can show it to the president.
But, as it turned out during yesterday’s ceremony, many people were watching the construction. The head of state said that Mr. Medvedev also supervised the process of modular assembly of the clinic. “There were CCTV cameras here, and Dmitry Anatolyevich watched in real time what was happening on the site,” explained Vladimir Putin. Under the supervision of the Deputy Prime Minister, the construction of the impressive size of the center easily took six months. Construction of the center cost 2.7 billion rubles, more than 2 billion was allocated from the federal budget.
A design feature of all new centers is that they consist of modules that are manufactured in Germany and delivered to the assembly point with interior finishing and even individual parts of heavy equipment. The acting head physician of the new center, Vladlen Bazylev, compared the structure of the clinic to a construction set. “The block can be removed and a new one installed,” confirmed Dmitry Medvedev. “The main thing is to effectively use the capabilities of this center, which we will get from the German side,” said Mr. Bazylev, clearly referring to the origin of the modules. But President Putin immediately stopped any ambiguity: “It will come from the Russian Federation. Don’t confuse God’s gift with scrambled eggs.”
According to Vladimir Putin, in a new type of hospital, all stages of a patient’s stay are thought out, from admission to discharge and postoperative rehabilitation. The capacity of the new medical center is also unique: it is designed for 170 patients, including 20 children. Patients will be sent to it not only from Penza and the region; complex operations will be performed here on residents of Chuvashia, Mari El, Mordovia, Saratov, Ryazan, Ulyanovsk and Tambov regions. In total, 10.5 million people live “in the sphere” of influence of the clinic. Up to 6 thousand surgical interventions will be performed annually using sophisticated equipment and the most modern surgical techniques.
The President confirmed that specialists from Moscow and St. Petersburg will go to work in Penza. This should be facilitated by an extraordinarily high salary (up to 100 thousand rubles per month) and a voluminous social package. They also tried to train local personnel, even sending them to the best medical universities in the country for advanced training. True, as a Vremya Novostey correspondent was told at the Moscow Medical Academy named after I.M. Sechenov, in just a few months, regional doctors have only been able to give a general idea of the capabilities of the equipment that is now at their disposal. Therefore, capital professors will help them.
As the head of the Ministry of Health and Social Development, Tatyana Golikova, emphasized in her speech at the opening of the medical center, during the implementation of the “Health” national project, an annual increase in the volume of high-tech care is provided. “Financing in 2006 and 2007 amounted to 27.4 billion rubles. Moreover, in 2007, compared to 2006, funding increased by 77%,” the minister noted. According to her, the construction of the centers will give impetus to the development of other industries, in particular the production of medical equipment, medical products, and medicines. In particular, in the near future, more than 100 thousand stents per year will be needed to meet the needs of federal centers for cardiovascular surgery. So far, these devices used in heart surgeries are not produced in Russia.