Russian Health Minister Slams Funding Levels

Russia's new Health Minister, Tatyana Dmitriyeva, has attacked the chronic underfunding of the health service. She has said in Moscow that public health, medical research and medical education got only 38.2%, 52.5% and 78.1% of their planned budget support, mainly in the form of wages and salaries, in the first 10 months of 1996, and that this trend looks set to continue in 1997.

Ms Dmitriyeva says no-one could say what would have become of health care in Russia if it had not been shored up by the national health insurance fund that covered 10%-20% of health spending in different territories of the federation over this period. The 1997 public health sector budget seemed "particularly strange," she said, as it envisaged only a 12% rise in allocations, "and that only in terms of wages," which made "all the more shocking" an increase in the budget allocation of "departmental medicine" for the Ministries of Communications, Internal Affairs, Defense and some others. Departmental medicine spending was to rise 35%-40%, she noted, "despite continuing cuts in spending on public health both at federal and regional levels."

She believed the 1997 budget "could be more generous towards the sick" in providing for drugs and medicines, medical equipment and repairs of health care organizations, and she was going to press for this. She also stressed the importance of efficient management and "economically wise guidelines" in medicine for success. She said the Russian health authorities ought to concentrate on information exchange, proper running of health programs at all levels, purchase of drugs and equipment and reasonable management.