It’s not that we hadn’t suspected things could be set up this way, but when you see it with your own eyes, it’s still shocking.
The wealthy Moscow Region. The immediate Moscow suburbs. Balashikha. High oil prices. Billion-ruble healthcare budgets. And yet doctors are forced to work in a system like that of the traffic police (a reference to the notoriously corrupt Russian road police): hustle however you can, squeeze money out of patients, take cash, and kick a share up the chain.
We went again to film a report for the medical trade union Doctors’ Alliance; we really liked the first time, and we’re always ready to help such a good cause.
Staff at the Balashikha Central District Hospital turned to the union for help. The doctors there have effectively been forced to pay tribute:
Every dentist is required to transfer 15,000 rubles to the hospital’s account. At the same time, doctors are forced to buy supplies out of their own pockets.
If you don’t transfer those 15,000 rubles, management keeps hounding you about the “debt” like debt collectors, and then gradually starts squeezing and punishing you.
On top of that, dentists aren’t given the medications they need. The attitude is basically: you’re dentists—that’s a gold mine. You can provide for yourselves.
What is a doctor supposed to do in that situation? Push paid services on patients and take cash for them. Keep some, and “send some upstairs.”
And this has been going on there for two years already. It’s just a nightmare. And it raises the eternal question: if this is what it’s like in the Moscow suburbs, then what must be happening in poorer regions?
In short, please watch, help spread the word, and if you know any doctors in a similar situation, tell them to write to Doctors’ Alliance.