"I would nurture and cherish the existing emergency service", Leonid Roshal

Julia Tutina, AiF: Leonid Mikhailovich, the Japanese are working on an anti-age medicine while our country struggles with providing excess to the already existing medicines. We constantly deal with stress, crises, armed conflicts How can a common person survive at all?

Leonid Roshal: Yes, we are facing more that we can bear. Underfunding is the major problem. I feel like the financial lobbying is against the healthcare. Healthcare is not amongst the state s main priorities, and the state keeps on cutting the funding. We had the meager 3.7% of GDP, which is now 3.4%. Moreover, our citizens tend to ignore their health. Today we face the lack of people s responsibility for their own health, which results in huge financial losses for both these people and the state. We do treat an alcoholic, who has broken his head, don t we? Why don t we them call them to responsibility?

Leonid Roshal

- The healthcare is facing with many challenges. For example, HCPs strongly object transferring emergency care to private owners. But why?

- I'm also against this. It only relates to the transfer of logistics functions to contractors, i. e. vehicles and drivers. Our professionals will still be there. You know, one of the contractors went bust, and we had no vehicles to move on. What were we supposed to do? See, there can be serious issues while one contractor is being substituted for another. I would nurture and cherish the existing emergency service we are already having. The leadership is responsible for providing sufficient funds, equipment and skilled personnel. The emergency specialists must be socially protected. The idea of transferring emergency services to private owners is actually risky for the state.

- Another pain point I d like to discuss. Young professionals do not go to villages or leave them as soon as their mandatory period ends to go back to cities

- I disagree. Not all of HCPSs go there to take money, serve their term and leave. Some of them do stay in the rural areas. It would be wise to pay out a lump sum of, say,a million rubles to young HCPs decide to work in rural areas. We must increase the age of Zemsky Doctor participants from 35 to 45 years, and later, to 50 years. But will this million solve all the problems of rural healthcare? I doubt. We need a whole social program for that. People need to know where they will leave, what social conditions will be provided to them, whether or not they will be able to settle down and have kids and strike roots in a new place. This is the strategy we should stick to.

- We are amidst the enrollment season. Are we again going to educate young professionals at state-funded departments to later work in paid clinics?

- I d like to share my experience here. Referral to a hand-on practice after the graduation is a great good. That was the period when I acquired the experience which I could not get anywhere else later in my career. We need to understand this—referrals are not a waste of time and opportunities; it is the time of learning, making unexpected decisions, perfecting one s skills and knowledge. I am wholeheartedly for the referrals of graduates who have attended state-funded universities to a 2-3-years practice in healthcare centers. We badly lack specialists. Some say that the Constitution forbids this but I believe we could introduce amendments to the fundamental law of ours. There is another way: accreditation after graduation, which only allows entering the residency program after the graduate has worked in public healthcare center.

- Pharmaceutical companies are now legally obliged to disclose mechanisms of paying to HCPs. This eliminates corruption but leaves HCPs with no source of information on novelties. What can be done about it?

- We will be having hard times without the support from pharmaceutical companies. But it is no good when a company imposes its own rules, impacts on the mindset of many people, forces their own products through, and so on. What we need is a competitive environment in which organizations will compete on equal terms, in which no one company or product will be dominating the market. The prime objective is to fight corruption. As far as training is concerned, we are working on launching a new law in the near future.

- The country rewards its HCPs, which is a right thing to do. But isn't it high time to develop unified standards so that even third-raters were capable of rendering medical aid?

- I doubt that third-raters could be of any use. The whole purpose of having the NMC is that the Russian healthcare will only employ qualified specialists. This is exactly why we insist on implementing continuous postgraduate education, introduce initiatives to improve the quality of medical education, bring in the system of professional labor standards. We certainly need to encourage qualified people, and let the world know that even today—despite all difficulties and complexities—it is still possible to work decently and be of use to the society.

This is why we have introduced the NMC reward, and we will grant it for the third time in September this year. The award already covers the entire Russia, and is gaining more and more popularity each year. The NMC reward is given for significant merits. This is a contest invented by the medical community to boost the image of the profession, and draw attention to the problems of the Russian healthcare industry. Not only do we award the achievements of experienced HCPs but also talk about the youth, journalists, public organizations, and talk about those professionals who give their life and efforts to rural areas, who are the honor of our healthcare system—about all those people who work hard to make us prosper.

Source: AIF

Other News

The Jewish Autonomous Region establishes NGO "Medical Chamber"

08.08.2016

The founding conference to be held on August 17 will establish a professional non-profit organization Medical Chamber. Local HCPs will create a professional public organization of their own.

Roshal met with the medical communities of Omsk and Novosibirsk

03.08.2016

Novosibirsk and Omsk welcome Leonid Roshal, Executive Staff Member of the All-Russia People s Front (ARPF), Director of the Institute of Emergency Children's Surgery and Traumatology, President of the Non-Commercial Partnership NMC. The renowned children's surgeon discussed most pressing challenges of the Russian healthcare industry with the medical community, talked to patients about difficulties with obtaining high quality medical aid and conducted a Q&A session.

Roshal: Novosibirsk should not haste to improve its healthcare system

19.05.2016

The Novosibirsk region should not be in haste to improve its healthcare system, says Leonid Roshal, President of the NMC, Director of the Research Institute of Emergency Children's Surgery and Traumatology. You should first set up professional standards for HCPs and improve their qualifications, —he said to journalists in Novosibirsk.

The Winner Congress

18.04.2016

The city of Smolensk hosted the 5thCongress of the National Medical Chamber. The Congress was prepared by the Medical Chamber of the Smolensk region under the auspices regional governor of Alexei Ostrovsky. The Congress discussed the results of the NMC s activities, and set out new tasks to be tackled by the NMC in the near future.

Today, the NMC is the most powerful association of healthcare professionals in Russia. And I would refer to this Congress as the Congress of Winners. HCPs from 80 Russian territorial entities and from 73 medical establishments all over the country voted for joining the NMC. It took us over 5 years to achieve this goal. Our path was not paved with rose petals; there were opposers to this powerful medical association. Tamed" associations were set up to destroy us,but they all failed. We won because we are not engaging in cheap politics; our party only comprises HCPs and patients. We do real things, and vigorously move towards uniting the entire medical community. They ve tried to instigate the All-Russia People s Front against us, which was clearly seen at the last forum, but they failed—almost three-quarters of the Russian President's instructions were based on our proposals, — said Dr. Roshal. 

National Medical Chamber is ready to take on the implementation of certain functions in the field of public health

29.02.2016

The National Medical Chamber meets the criteria the medical professional non-profit organizations may be transferred to carry out certain functions in the field of public health protection in the Russian Federation, said President National Medical Chamber Leonid Roshal at the organization meeting of the presidium of the Council.