Russia’s Healthcare Corruption

Grigory Pasko has posted some dystopic tales of his experiences in Russia’s healthcare system, and as we know from the medical blackmail of Vasily Alexanyan, the government has some serious problems to address in this policy area. Alex Rodriguez of the Chicago Tribune has a good report on the topic today:

Prevention and better health care can help reverse that trend. The Russian government is pumping $6.4 billion into revamping health care; much of that money is paying for the construction of eight high-tech medical centers across the country, new X-ray machines, electrocardiograms and ambulances at hospitals, and raises for family doctors. But doctors and nurses in the Russian Far East city of Amursk are still waiting for the overhaul to reach their hospital. In January 2007, the hospital ran out of syringes and asked patients to bring their own, said Olga Cherevko, a nurse at the hospital. Even something as fundamental as keeping pharmacies stocked can prove problematic for Russia’s beleaguered health-care system. A bureaucratic breakdown in late 2006 led to a severe shortage in government-supplied prescription drugs.