Right to Healt

Lyubov Schtyleva

On the 15th and 22nd of January the crisis center "Priuyt" ("Shelter") hosted the seminars "Women’s Rights to Healthcare". The participants were discussing the policy of the Russian Federation concerning healthcare and medical help for women, the problem of affordability of medical services for men and women, the influence of "double load" on women’s state of health, the result of introducing medical care insurance from the patients’ point of view.

The total number of women taking part in the seminars was 48, and each of them found her own specific examples to discuss. Summing up the experience of interaction between women and Russian medical system in all its variants, we have reached conclusions far from sanguine.

- The women believe that in Murmansk Region and in Russia in general the ways of realization of the Constitutional right of the citizens to healthcare and medical assistance are deformed or poorly developed.

- The quality of "insurance medicine" is considerably lower than even of the earlier "soviet" medical system, while its availability to the population is extremely obstructed and bureaucratized. The lines to record rooms have grown, it has become still more difficult to obtain a ticket to a medical specialist, and to receive diagnostics in the Region center one has to wait for several months. More and more often patients are forced to pay for the services instead of using their insurance.

- The information concerning the basic medical program for the population, the list of services and the inventory of medicaments provided by the policy are almost secret; not a single one of the 25 participants of the seminar was able to say what she knows of her rights with an insurance policy in her hands. Valentina Dikayeva, a Regional Assembly of Social Organizations Council member believes that "the most "closed" information in the Region is the information concerning medicine and finances. The society is eliminated from the control over spending vast financial resources though all employers pay for each member of staff - 3.6% of the salary fund - to medical insurance funds. The money is obviously there. But what it is spent for – that’s a sealed book. Often it is used to cover establishment charges of the funds themselves, and not for medicines and hospitals".

- The retardation of medical care is most considerable in such important areas as gynecology, obstetrics and contraception, reproductive health of men and women. The women believe that it is direct gender discrimination based on the gender stereotypes of female problems as secondary, unimportant. Most of industries and departments that have practically no female employees are provided with "improved" medical care including special hospitals and policlinics, while traditionally "women’s" branches, such as education, culture, service and even trade have nothing of the kind…

- Many women are convinced that "medicine for women" is the weakest and most neglected link in the regional medical system. Each of the participants gave her own example of offensively low quality of service, incompetence of antenatal care clinics and hospital personnel, their disrespectful attitude to women.

Sharp discussion was caused by a phrase of one of the women that one can take care of oneself only, while it’s no use to fight against the bureaucratic machine, especially for a single person. More than 10 women gave examples of successful struggle for their rights to receive quality medical care. Each of them was guided by knowledge of the law, addressed different authorities and achieved positive results in the end. These women’s experience led to the conclusion: each person should know the Law and be persistent in its use.

All participants stressed the lack of information for the society.

These seminars led to organizing an initiative group that would develop and conduct a special social campaign "Citizens for the ‘transparent’ budget of the open and quality medical service". The women decided to insist on the openness of the medical budget in Murmansk and Murmansk Region, organize a series of round-tables with insurance funds specialists, involve regional mass-media in the campaign to inform the citizens of their rights in the area of medical care and affect the quality of medical insurance funds’ work.