Docs Protest “PutinCare” in the Streets

More than 6, 000 doctors and nurses took to Moscow streets on November 23, 2014 to protest the planned closure of at least 28 Moscow hospitals and the firing of up to 10, 000 medical staff, as part of a sweeping overhaul that officials say is needed to modernize a decrepit Soviet-era health system.

It is the first mass social protest in Russia in nearly a decade.

And President Obama thinks he’s got troubles with his healthcare reform.

“Doctor’s Rebellion”

The AP reports that the “doctor’s rebellion” started in early November when thousands took to the streets to protest the layoffs and hospital closures.

Russian President Vladimir Putin reportedly asked the Moscow government to reconsider the reform as his human rights council hosted a round table discussion with prominent doctors and trade unions that were not consulted when the reform was launched.

One of the protesters, Semyon Galperin, M.D., had spent nearly a decade working at top hospitals and research companies in the U.S. He spent the last ten years in Russia. He was recently given the choice of leaving his Moscow hospital or staying on as a hospital attendant after his job was eliminated as part of the reform.

Galperin works at a hospital that officials say “monopolizes” multiple sclerosis treatment. “Doctors are abusing their position, ” said an official spokesperson, adding that the city does not need as many neurologists now that Moscow purchased high-tech MRI equipment making it easier to diagnose multiple sclerosis.

Blaming Putin

Moscow officials blame Putin, citing a 2010 Russian law designed to transition from Soviet-era dependency to self-reliance by cutting subsidies to a minimum. “Some of the doctors who are being fired are underqualified. Some of them don’t have enough workload, ” said a Moscow Health Care Department spokeswoman. Putin had vowed to make doctors’ salaries twice that of the average employee by 2018. At least for those who still had jobs.

Russian doctors reportedly earn 45, 000 rubles ($969) a month, while orderlies earn 26, 000 rubles ($560).

Compulsory Health Insurance

But the money to fund hospitals and medical staff is supposed to come out of a fund of compulsory health insurance payments that will see its budget fall by 15% by 2015, the RBK Daily wrote. Its budget for health spending in Moscow will fall even more sharply, by 18%.

According to the AP, doctors and other state employees are a core of Putin’s support base because of heavy subsidies to schools and hospitals.

Apparently, the medical community was not part of the reform discussions and their details only became public in October following a leak in the press. Doctors and hospitals have reportedly not been told why they are being phased out or what is going to happen to their patients.

Putin’s presidential human rights council is calling for a halt to the layoffs saying the reform violates a constitutional right to free health care. “The Moscow health department held a number of roundtables with medical professionals, while Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin offered additional severance pay of up to 500, 000 rubles ($10, 700) per doctor, ” reported AP.