"He is neither a doctor nor a scientist"

The leaders of the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences announced a list of claims against Mikhail Zurabov

Yesterday, a two-day general meeting of academicians of the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences (RAMS) ended, at which a new charter of the scientific community was unanimously adopted. Academicians fundamentally did not want to accept the proposals of the Ministry of Health and Social Development regarding changes in the funding procedure and the method of managing the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences. They categorically rejected the possibility of creating a supervisory board of government officials and opposed the transfer of a number of their research institutes to the new Federal Agency for High-Tech Medical Care. The discussion of the charter, which resulted in criticism of the team of Mikhail Zurabov and his associates, seems to have become a more important event for academicians than the election of new members of the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences, which was postponed until the very last moment.

“The new charter is practically no different from the old one,” President of the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences Mikhail Davydov noted with undisguised satisfaction after the meeting in a conversation with a Vremya Novostei correspondent. Elderly academicians shook Mr. Davydov’s hand and asked him to continue to “defend science from Zurabov.” The minister was accused of being neither a doctor nor a scientist. “They simply forgot about medical science in Russia, I’m talking about its financing,” said academician Gennady Ryabov. The issue of finance is now one of the most important for the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences. The desire of the state to at least simply count the property of the academy (no one in this structure can name the exact number of buildings owned by it) is perceived as nothing other than an attempt to redistribute property.

Rejecting cooperation with the relevant ministry, the medical academy remains independent, but poor. The Ministry of Health and Social Development says that the poverty of academic institutions is a consequence of poor financial management and the general lack of awareness of academics in the field of management. The academicians themselves believe that the ministry is starving out institutions and squeezing funding, which, by the way, is assigned to the RAMS as a separate line in the federal budget. As an example of a direct “mockery” of medical science, the RAMS cites the prices at which, for example, transplants and other types of high-tech medical care are paid. So, in particular, an organ transplant is paid for at a total cost of 735 thousand rubles. per person, while the real cost of such an operation is 45 thousand dollars. Moreover, the last figure did not come out of nowhere - it follows from the standards of medical care developed by the ministry itself. The office of the President of the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences explained to Vremya Novostey that the scientific community is no longer able to constantly follow the minister with an outstretched hand. That is, academics would like to distribute research budgets themselves.

It is noteworthy that the RAMS academicians from Minister Zurabov’s team, who found themselves in an overwhelming minority, chose to remain silent and not react to the criticism of their colleagues. The head of the new Federal Agency for High-Tech Medical Care, Ivan Dedov, the head of Roszdrav, Yuri Belenkov, and Deputy Minister Vladimir Starodubov left the meeting room without speaking or commenting.

Ignatiy ANTONOV, corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences:

-- I live in Belarus and am also an academician of the National Academy of Belarus. We are closely monitoring what is happening in Russian healthcare and medical science, and I want to say that we would not refuse such a funding program as your national project “Health”. The only thing I don’t understand is how the Minister of Health can be not a doctor, but a person of some technical profession. And the Ministry of Health should deal only with medicine, and not with the entire social sphere. But, fortunately, we have never had anything like this and, I hope, never will.

With regard to statements about the need to separate scientific institutes from the academy, I am convinced that there is no sound grain. Scientific institutes must engage in science, independently determining the range of their interests and tasks. Merging them with someone else or reassigning them is harmful, first of all, for science. Of course, no one can cancel cooperation between, say, research institutes and departments of educational institutions; such interaction must develop. But fundamentally different institutions with completely different main lines cannot become subdivisions of one department under any circumstances. It is from this position that I evaluate the new charter of the academy; I am quite satisfied with it.

Gennady SUKHIKH, academician of the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences:

— The disagreements between the Ministry of Health and Social Development and the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences are of a very complex and even philosophical nature. Any interdepartmental conflict does not contribute to the success of either party. But in this case we are also talking about two, of course, talented and strong personalities. Mikhail Zurabov, an exceptionally talented person, financier and, of course, an epochal personality for medicine, has a very strong trump card. This is his lack of his own scientific ambitions, medical and academic background. Previously, if the minister was a surgeon, a bias towards surgery began, if a cardiologist, then they began to actively develop cardiology. The current minister is trying to implement the complex mechanism of modern healthcare through a universal tool - finance. The fact that the ministry is now dealing not only with healthcare, but also with social issues, also adds room for maneuver - this is a doubled financial resource. President of the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences Mikhail Davydov is an incredibly talented, strong-willed person, a brilliant surgeon, a former paratrooper and an unusually emotional person, who also worries about the integrity of the academy and its prospects. If two such major figures manage to come to an agreement, and I believe that this will happen sooner or later, everyone will win. The fact that the conflict has dragged on is perhaps also responsible for the environment of these two outstanding leaders. I recently met with Academician Davydov and I want to say that his views and assessments have undergone significant changes over the past year. We all dream that the minister and the president of the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences will hear each other. There is a basis for this - their deep statehood.

Galina PAPERNAYA