During the conference, Healthcare Minister Veronika Skvortsova said that a major stage in the work was completed when the roadmaps for each of the 83 Russian regions were agreed. The next stage will be to coordinate stages of regional healthcare development programmes to 2020. “This work must be stepped up. All the regional programmes must be adopted by April 1, 2013,” the Minister said.
The Minister said that 2013 saw the introduction of a new financial and economic model based on equal per capita quotas for rural and urban residents alike. “Through the Mandatory Medical Insurance System we have recreated the single state purse holding the money distributed among the whole population regardless of the contribution each region is able to make,” the Minister said. The amount has increased by 61% compared with 2012. Subventions are transferred to the regions every month, and the total amount in 2013 is 985.4 billion roubles, a 61% increase on 2012. Subventions include the sums needed to preserve all the incentive additions envisaged under the Healthcare Priority National Project and the regional healthcare modernisation programmes.
The Minister stressed that the standards of healthcare for adults in 2013 have been financed to 70%, which in some cases implies paid services, but healthcare for children is 100% financed. Therefore, no child in any region can be charged for medical services. If some rare and expensive treatment is required the money can be raised jointly with charitable organisations with which the Ministry has established close cooperation.
“Thanks to the constructive dialogue that has emerged with the charitable organisations we are planning to raise money together for exclusive cases, but there are not many such cases. All types of medical assistance, beginning from primary to emergency services, have now been included in the standard package,” the Minister said. “As for the adult population, we will introduce the full tariff by 2015, so the regional tariff commissions must work more actively. The commissions must set tariffs competently, taking into account the available finances and the incidence of disease in every region.”
