Experts disappointedly acknowledge that the current situation of the domestic health care system is still not at the right quality level. This is due primarily to the fact that it is necessary to solve many problems. Health care has experienced both ups and downs in recent years. Rising inflation and financial crises only exacerbated the already precarious position in this area.
Health Assessment Criteria
The state of the system can be characterized by several features that are clearly traceable and available in a statistical form. Among the primary factors, the number of all medical institutions in the country can be noted. Even more important is the quality of services provided in clinics and hospitals.
The current percentage of mortality from diseases in the Russian Federation also plays an important role. In this case, the level of innovation invented by domestic specialists, and after being introduced to conduct daily procedures in medical institutions, can also have a direct effect. Of course, healthcare problems in Russia cannot be solved without the involvement of foreign technologies and specialists.
Medical institutions
Today's trend shows that such institutions are becoming less and less every year. Experts disappointingly predict the continuation of such a trend in the near future. A factual conclusion states that by 2021 the number of medical facilities across the country will be close to that in 1913. According to official statistics from the Center for Economic Development and Trade, in just 15 years, from 2000 to 2015, the number of these establishments in the country almost doubled. If at the dawn of the new millennium there were 10,700 hospitals, clinics and other similar institutions, then over the indicated period their number was reduced to 5,400.
When the authorities began to sound the alarm, analysts urgently drew up a report in which they thoroughly calculated that the problems of healthcare development in Russia should immediately be put at the forefront. In their opinion, the state should, as a matter of priority, review its policy regarding the closure of municipal hospital facilities, or at least reduce the pace of this process. Today, for each year, the number of medical institutions is reduced by 353 units. Thus, by 2022 their number will not exceed three thousand.
Hospital beds
Their number is also reduced in accordance with the above factor. The most deplorable situation is observed today in rural regions of the country, where only 400 out of 4,500 hospitals are left. You don’t have to wait for ambulance in such settlements at all, and you need to get to the local paramedic at a distance of about 40-60 kilometers. For this reason, there are no special problems with the availability of hospital beds in the countryside, because people simply contact only in the most emergency order.
Nevertheless, this issue for urban residents remains very relevant. Last but not least, health problems revolve around the fact that the number of hospital beds has declined by an average of 27.5 percent to 1,200 beds per hospital. As a comparison, we can give a similar indicator for rural areas. There, the reduction increases up to 40 percent. Over the past 3.5 years, the number of hospital beds has decreased by 100 thousand beds. These data are confirmed by the Health Foundation.
Hospitalization growth
There is an even more pressing problem than the number of hospitals and places in them. The previous difficulties described generally do not affect the availability of medical services and their quality level. Attention should be paid to such an indicator as the number of hospitalized patients. Contrary to expectations, this number is steadily increasing.
For example, in 2016, approximately 100 thousand people were hospitalized more than in the same period the previous year. Shedding light on the problems of modern healthcare, experts believe that getting rid of extra beds is still necessary. Thanks to competent optimization, you can find a path to speedy prosperity. Nevertheless, it is worth abandoning only those places in the chamber that are not loaded at least 75 percent.
Epidemiological factor
It is enough to take one region and follow the situation when an epidemic breaks out in it. It is not so important what kind of disease affected the population. An example is the most common flu. In such critical conditions, all the imperfection of logistics and the number of places in modern hospitals will manifest itself.
In the event of an unexpected occurrence of a serious illness of a mass nature, the Russian system with its number of medical facilities simply does not have enough resources to provide timely assistance to everyone. This can be called one of the most serious health problems, but, unfortunately, only after the fact can pay attention to it.
Disease reduction
The Russian Research Center analyzed in 2016 the number of deaths. Only those that occurred due to deterioration due to underlying diseases were taken into account. As a result, this indicator decreased by 1.2 percent compared to the same period in 2015. On the scale of a multimillion-dollar country, this can be considered a very worthy figure. This fact also confirms that although in the Russian Federation there are definitely problems with medicine and healthcare, the level of service provision itself is considered one of the best.
Analysts have calculated which diseases are better succumbed to therapy and treatment. The number of deaths from malignant neoplasms decreased, for example, by 0.6 percent. The list of other achievements in reducing mortality includes the following items:
- circulatory system - 2.6%;
- respiratory organs - 7.9%;
- external causes - 6.5%;
- digestive organs - 3.4%.
What diseases die in Russia
Despite such rosy and unambiguously positive indicators, the reverse side of the coin also takes place. So, it is necessary to look for ways to solve health problems in the treatment of parasitic diseases. The mortality rate from them over the same period increased by 1.2 percent. In addition, the study also indicates other groups of ailments from which the country's population suffers. In total, the number of deaths from them increased by 7 percent.
A list was also compiled of the most common diseases in the country, taking the most of the lives of compatriots. Among them are circulatory problems. More than every second resident of Russia dies from this group of diseases, or rather, 53.1 percent. On the second line are neoplasms with an indicator of 15.5 percent, and external factors with a level of about 9 percent close the top three.
The problem of managers in the industry
As a reference, you can give simple and clear statistics. In the American city of Chicago, the population is about 9 million people. The local health department has eight employees. At the same time, 15 million people live in Moscow, and approximately 2,000 employees are assigned to some posts in the same state apparatus. At the same time, the capital categorically lacks high-quality equipment or free essential medicines.
Each official in the Ministry of Health earns an average of 100 thousand rubles a month. By reducing the staff to 100 people, you can save about 190 million rubles. Such an amount could be spent every month for any purely medical professional needs. For example, these tools allow you to purchase 12 relatively inexpensive and simple models of MRI devices, each of which costs 16 million rubles. An overabundance of managers can rightly be considered the main social health problem.
“Non-medical” costs in the system
Since 2014, the industry has seen a clear trend towards reduced funding from the state. For this year, the budget amounted to 462 billion rubles, but in 2015 it has already decreased to 406 billion rubles. The recession is still ongoing, and a temporary increase in 2016 is due to high inflation. In 2017, the amount amounted to 389 billion rubles. Nevertheless, the State Duma stubbornly maintains that health problems will soon be resolved. At the same time, a loud promise is voiced to increase the funds allocated from the treasury in the very near future.
The so-called non-medical expenses are associated not only with finances, but also with the time that doctors spend on preparing various reports for the bureaucratic apparatus. Experts believe that instead of satisfying the paper whims of the management, doctors could successfully spend their working hours on really useful things in their own profile.
Innovations in domestic medicine
No matter how terrible the picture as a whole looks, there are branches that really function efficiently and productively. So, for example, there are ever new innovative solutions of domestic scientists and doctors, which they are actively developing. Fortunately, common problems in the health care system do not affect the activities of the bright minds of inventors and discoverers so much.
The list below shows some of the prominent innovations created in Russia in 2017.
- Domestic 3D Bioprinting Solutions laboratory demonstrated a working model of a 3D printer on which human organs can be printed.
- Life Button. The invention is a one-button gadget and is intended for emergency calling of the Ministry of Emergencies and other services. The device has a GPS navigator.
- "i-Hematologist" - an expert system for the complete decoding of a blood test at home. The service is able to provide a huge amount of information on the site, if you enter data from the device into the desired form.
Summarizing
The conclusion is somewhat twofold, because in addition to difficulties, one can also see obvious progress in various fields. In particular, mortality from the most common diseases is reduced, new innovative technologies are invented. The government as a whole is trying in some way to influence public health problems in a positive way, however, as a rule, everything rests on budget constraints. If the reduction in the number of medical institutions cannot be avoided, then at least it is necessary to increase the level of service in them, improve the qualifications of personnel and buy new high-quality equipment.