Healthy Russians Appreciate Doctors More
Overall, Russians tend to be satisfied with their country's health care system, particularly when they do not need to deal with it; however, those with recent first-hand experience of healthcare often complain about the lack of professionalism and the decline in free medical services, according to Sergey Shishkin, Head of HSE's Department of Health Care Administration and Economy, and Natalia Kochkinaand Marina Krasilnikova, sociologists with the Levada Centre, in their paper Health Care Service Availability and Quality as Assessed by the Russian Public.
15
U.S. dollars, or 11 euros, was the amount spent per person in Russia in 2014 on preventing cardiovascular disease.
Doctors Consider Informal Payments Normal
Many patients are dissatisfied with the health services they receive, but prepared to pay doctors extra for quality care. Doctors, in turn, consider it normal to receive cash or gifts from grateful patients. However, the line can be very thin between gratitude and extortion, according to a study by Alla Chirikova, Senior Research Fellow of the RAS Institute of Sociology, and Sergei Shishkin, Academic Supervisor of the HSE's Institute for Health Economics, published in the Universe of Russia journal.
The Health Care System Needs Resources
The government-set objectives for the health care system for the next three to five years barely conform tothe fiscal policy set for that period. In his report, ‘The Russian Health Care System: Problems and Prospects for Development’, Sergey Shishkin, Academic Supervisor of the HSE Institute for Health Economics, analysed the opportunities to meet these objectives in the context of the institutional changes taking place in that industry.