Press Release, 11.02.2019

Alexander Yermishin, Chairman of the Saratov branch of Yabloko, demanded that the authorities should resume functioning of children’s clinic No 10 and children’s infectious diseases hospital No 6 in the Volga district of Saratov. Both medical institutions fell victim to the government’s practices of “optimisation” in the form of merger with other medical institutions resulting in cutting qualified medical personnel  and drop in the quality and availability of medical services for city residents.

In his speech at the rally against the optimisation of health care, Alexander Yermishin stressed that in 2012 the federal budget spending on health care amounted to 613.9 billion roubles, and in 2018 only to 460 billion roubles.

“This gives an exhaustive picture of the priorities in the state budget policies and the attitude of the authorities towards their fellow citizens,” Alexander Yermishin said.

He also noted that the only way of maintaining the level of wages of medical workers in the situation of reduced funding is to cut medical institutions and increase the work burden on doctors, which means deterioration in the quality of medical services.

Alexander Yermishin emphasised that the situation in the health care sector could change for the better only if Russia’s domestic and foreign policies change, and this is what should be achieved.

Earlier, the Saratov branch of Yabloko published a statement demanding to stop the destruction of the health care system in the form of liquidation (consolidation, “optimisation”) of medical institutions (hospitals, maternity hospitals, clinics, health centres, etc.).