Russia's public health care system is crumbling

November 13, 1995
Web posted at: 9:30 p.m. EST (0230 GMT)

From Correspondent Rob Reynolds

MOSCOW (CNN) -- For nearly three weeks, Russia's president and number one heart patient has been secluded behind the walls of Moscow's Central Clinical Hospital. Aides who have seen Boris Yeltsin say he is getting better.

"The president is much healthier than the so-called analysts here and in the West think," said Vladimir Shumeiko, president of the Russian Senate.

The Russian leader receives the best care available. But in many parts of his country, public health services are in profound crisis.

At Moscow's Public Hospital Number 52, doctors are struggling to cope with a lack of funds and a flood of patients.

"It would be very difficult for me to say the situation will get worse," said Dr. Andrei Bezprosvani, a cardiologist at the hospital, "because it really couldn't get any worse."

The patients at Hospital Number 52 are luckier than most -- modern heart monitors, made in Germany, are installed in only five out of the over 100 hospitals in Moscow. Hospital Number 52 is one.

Elsewhere, much more basic needs go unmet. Last year, the Health Ministry reported. that half of all hospitals had no hot water and one quarter lacked sewage systems.

Infectious diseases like tuberculosis, measles and diphtheria are raging unchecked due to lack of vaccinations and treatment. Combined with other factors -- general impoverishment of much of the population, heavy fat diets, heavy smoking and drinking, and exposure to pollution -- the results are skyrocketing death rates and plummeting life expectancy.

Statistics show that, on average, Russian men now die at the age of 57 -- down from 64 in 1987. It is the steepest drop experts have seen at any time in recorded history.

"This is all connected with the economic and political situation in Russia," said Bezprosvani. "People have no confidence in the future. They experience constant emotional stress, which of course leads to more diseases."

Russia's public health care system is crumbling

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