Press Release, 27.08.2021

Photo: Nikolai Rybakov in Nizhny Novgorod

Yabloko Chairman Nikolai Rybakov will send an official letter to Gleb Nikitin, Governor of the Nizhny Novgorod region, demanding to allocate 1 billion roubles from the regional budget and provide support to the region’s healthcare.

The address of the head of the Yabloko party to the Governor runs that expenditure on healthcare in the budget of the Nizhny Novgorod region shrunk by 4.2 billion roubles compared to last year (by 15.6% compared to 2020). However, the expenditure part of the budget is full of expenses that cannot be called timely and effective. Thus, the cost of maintaining the regional authorities increased by 80 million roubles and amounted to 8.5 billion roubles, 383 million roubles were allocated to support the regional media, which are mainly involved in public relations of the regional government. The expenditures on landscaping and beautification associated with the celebration of the 800th anniversary of Nizhny Novgorod (32 billion roubles) sharply increased.

The Yabloko leader noted that the situation with the coronavirus epidemic is extremely hard in the Nizhny Novgorod region: 154,000 cases and 5,700 deaths were detected in the region during the pandemic. The mortality rate from coronavirus in the region (3.7%) significantly exceeds the national average (2.6%). Only 50% of the beds deployed for COVID patients are equipped with oxygen.

In November 2020, it was reported that there was an acute shortage of personnel in medical institutions in the region, and Minister of Healthcare David Melik-Huseynov appealed to private medical centers and private specialists with valid certificates with a request to go to work in public hospitals and clinics. The regional Ministry of Healthcare reported a shortage of 660 doctors in the Nizhny Novgorod region. One of the reasons for the shortage of medical personnel is low salaries: for example, a dialysis engineer at a private medical centre in Bogorodsk, which was redesigned by decree of the Ministry of Healthcare under renal failure and COVID-19, said that his salary was 12,000 rouubles, a nurse salary was 17,000 – 19,000 roubles.

As of the terms of vaccination of the population, the region ranks 36th in Russia: 27.7% of the population received the vaccine. However, last month there were complaints about the lack of vaccine. 13,000 – 15,000 people have been vaccinated in the region every day, although the existing capacities allow to vaccinate 28,000 people. In this emergency situation, health care needs increased financial assistance.

“According to our estimates, at least 1 billion roubles can already be allocated to fight the pandemic, support doctors, purchase ambulances, medical equipment and medicines. The epidemic is not declining – new strains of the virus appear, and the low level of vaccination of the population leads to the fact that with each new wave of the epidemic increasingly more our citizens die from it. Cutting money for healthcare today, we will pay for it with an increased morbidity and the lives of Nizhny Novgorod residents tomorrow,” Rybakov emphasised.

It should be noted that  on 26 August, Nikolai Rybakov was on a working visit to the Nizhny Novgorod region. He held a meeting with the organisers of the Tom Sawyer Fest project on the improvement of the city, took water samples from the Volga to assess the water quality, paid tribute to the memory of journalist Irina Slavina who committed a self-immolation act protesting against curbing of the freedom of speech and police pressure, and also held a charity picket to raise funds for a monument to killed dogs in Nizhny Novgorod.