Health security

Previous bad decisions led to current fatal problems

Putin’s Health-Care Cuts Spark Protests in Russian Heartland

...Yury Korovin, 60, is the only surgeon left in Okulovka hospital, where services are under threat as the authorities focus on medical care in the larger town of Borovichi. Until last year there were four surgeons, but three quit, including two in March who left for better pay in the neighboring Leningrad region.

“I come in and ask the nurse, ‘What medicines have we got?’ She says, ‘Nothing!’ ” Korovin said on April 5 in a hotel room in Okulovka where activists gather. “Patients have to bring their own sheets.” Late last year, because there’s no functioning endoscopic equipment, Korovin had to cut open a patient to stop bleeding in his stomach.