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Budget maneuvers at the expense of public health are intolerable – russian patients consider

01.10.2013

Major public patients organizations of Russia appealed to the leadership of the country with an open letter calling revise plans for "optimization" of the healthcare system and exclude the cost of health care from the scope of "budget maneuver", leaving them mostly in the federal jurisdiction.

The proposed reform, according to which the main burden in the healthcare will fall on the shoulders of the regions, does not guarantee that the administrative units of the country will have enough funds even for maintaining the healthcare system at its current level, the open letter says. The inequality in terms of regional incomes poses serious problems already today – territorial programs in most administrative units of Russia are not fully implemented. There is not much hope for support of the federal budget: the creation of a universal federal subvention allows the regional authorities to change the proportions of spending in the regions on, for example, education, health care, protection of forests and so on at their own discretion.
Organizations that have signed this letter believe that the "budget maneuver" in the health care sphere is an unjustified social experiment on the health and lives of citizens of Russia, they insist that the main part of health care and drug provision costs – above the minimum which even the most subsidized regions are able to afford at their own expense – needs to be funded from the federal budget as before.