{"id":1045,"date":"2016-08-31T09:50:57","date_gmt":"2016-08-31T09:50:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/krespoliskola.com\/?p=1045\/"},"modified":"2017-06-15T09:53:06","modified_gmt":"2017-06-15T09:53:06","slug":"stadiums-versus-hospitals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/krespoliskola.com\/en\/2016\/08\/stadiums-versus-hospitals\/","title":{"rendered":"Stadiums Versus Hospitals"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Photo: tranzewatte.livejournal.com<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Russian healthcare, just like state-funded Soviet healthcare before it, has never been characterized by either quality or accessibility. Despite rather large investments in the medical industry that both the federal and local budgets could afford during the period of high energy prices, the quality of medical care received by the population remains appallingly poor. There is a deficit of doctors, and their level of knowledge does not meet modern-day standards. There is a continuous deficit of effective drugs.\u00a0 Today, when oil revenues have plunged and there is no prospect of foreign investment, the question arises:\u00a0 At whose expense will the government be cutting back on spending?\u00a0 The authorities have quickly found a solution on the federal level by gradually reducing healthcare spending for over a year. Local authorities act in a similar way. Only, whereas in Putin\u2019s opinion, the government cannot cut down on \u201cnational security\u201d spending (or in other words, federal expenditures on the police and special forces used to suppress popular unrest), local authorities use budget funds that were supposed to be spent on health care and education, for example, to build sports facilities for the upcoming 2018 FIFA World Cup instead.\u00a0 Thus, in St. Petersburg, funds originally intended for the construction of schools, daycare centers and healthcare facilities are going to be used <\/a>\u00a0to complete the construction of the Zenit Arena stadium.<\/p>\n

Georgi Poltavchenko, Putin\u2019s colleague from the Leningrad KGB and current governor of St. Petersburg, called<\/a> this redistribution of funds a \u201ctechnical solution\u201d instead of admitting that the country that is rapidly sliding into poverty simply cannot afford an expensive World Cup. \u00a0It would seem that it should not be difficult for the Gazprom-owned Zenit <\/a>Football Club to find money to finance the completion of its home field.\u00a0 However, Gazprom\u2019s profitability dramatically decreased in 2015-16. \u201cPutin\u2019s valet\u201d is running out of money, and consequently the stadium is going to be paid for by the local budget funds originally allocated for children and sick.<\/p>\n

Russia\u2019s federal and local authorities have for a long time been treating the country\u2019s healthcare system as they deem fit. Even isolated examples <\/a>allow one to draw deplorable conclusions let alone statistical data<\/a> that reflects the situation in general. \u00a0The sickness rate among the country\u2019s population is rising, and while the number of hospitals is decreasing, the share of non-governmental facilities and private medical centers is growing.\u00a0 Even according to the Russian Ministry of Health and Social Development<\/a>, the state of medical facilities in the country is far from perfect. The quality of free medical care is deteriorating. \u00a0According to Russia\u2019s Accounting Chamber headed by former Russian minister of health and social development, the number of people dying in Russian hospitals has grown<\/a>. \u00a0At the same time the number of refusals to send an ambulance has increased by 270 thousand.\u00a0 It seems that the objective here was to lower the mortality rate associated with medical errors.<\/p>\n

According to a poll conducted by the Russian Public Opinion Research Center (VTsIOM)<\/a>, 50 percent of respondents believe the quality of medical care to be poor and professional qualifications of medical specialists to be insufficient. \u00a0As a result, 25 percent of Russians resort to self-treatment<\/a>. It is possible to improve the quality of medical care, including by improving the quality of education. However, education spending is being reduced<\/a> perhaps even more rapidly than healthcare spending.<\/p>\n

It is also worth noting that free healthcare services are being gradually replaced by chargeable ones. Thus, according to Russia\u2019s Accounting Chamber<\/a>, \u201cthe number of chargeable medical services has been increasing in a chaotic and unregulated manner when fees are being introduced unexpectedly and in a non-transparent form for services that are supposed to be provided free of charge\u201d.<\/p>\n

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Photo: vladtime.ru<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In the conditions of limited financial resources, the Russian government sees no other solution than to reduce budget financing of the healthcare system and to introduce fees for medical services. Putin, just like his predecessors Stalin, Khrushchev and Brezhnev, can only give pompous speeches about public health while at the same time redistributing scanty budget resources to pay for the construction of palaces and stadiums and to finance wars and the police.\u00a0 Just like the majority of dictators of the past and present, Putin is concerned only about his own health, both physical and mental. He is not interested in regional hospitals and local doctors. Should the need arise any one of Putin\u2019s numerous residences scattered throughout the country can be easily transformed into a modern and highly comfortable hospital for one patient. If you think that stadiums are being built for ordinary people you are mistaken. It\u2019s just that our current president is into sports.<\/p>\n

Pavel Ivlev, Wednesday, August 31, 2016<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

More articles can be found on the website of the Committee for Russian Economic Freedom:\u00a0http:\/\/russianeconomicfreedom.org\/<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Russian healthcare, just like state-funded Soviet healthcare before it, has never been characterized by either quality or accessibility. Despite rather large investments in the medical industry that both the federal and local budgets could afford during the period of high <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[50,46,49],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1045","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics","category-investments","category-publications"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/krespoliskola.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1045","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/krespoliskola.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/krespoliskola.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/krespoliskola.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/krespoliskola.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1045"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/krespoliskola.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1045\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1046,"href":"https:\/\/krespoliskola.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1045\/revisions\/1046"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/krespoliskola.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1045"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/krespoliskola.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1045"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/krespoliskola.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1045"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}