Minister of Healthcare Mikhail Murashko: I wanted to briefly report to you. We recently held the final board meeting, I have made a brief presentation. The key information is that thanks to national projects we are implementing on your instruction and the comprehensive approach we are using, infrastructure, personnel, technology, and staff training are developing well. The public is noticing these changes; the chart shows positive trends in terms of satisfaction with medical care.
Most importantly, all 89 regions are currently achieving their targets. Clearly, we are still in the process of modernising the system, but people see and appreciate it.
We wanted to highlight a number of national projects on this slide. In particular, the Combating Cardiovascular Diseases project is truly effective in reducing mortality in emergency situations such as heart attacks and strokes.
Thanks to the programme you have supported to provide medicines to cerebrovascular accident patients, we have helped 1.105 million people last year. Overall, we have been doing this for two years. The programme helps reduce the risk of recurrent strokes and heart attacks by 19 percent, which is a staggering figure.
This year we have added diagnosis to the programme of state guarantees for early forms of dyslipidaemia and atherosclerosis, because there is a hereditary form of these diseases. The programme of state guarantees includes the possibility of testing for them. This means that we can save the lives of working-age population, primarily men who suffer from vascular accidents at an early age. Today we can prevent them.
Yet another project is the Fighting Cancer federal project. A large amount of equipment has been provided under it in the past few years. I would like to point out that it is also supplied to the new regions. We have built, supplied equipment and opened a cancer centre in Melitopol in the Zaporozhye Region.
Vladimir Putin: There were none there before, right?
Mikhail Murashko: No, there were none, and we initially transported these patients to federal hospitals, including in Crimea. Today, the Melitopol centre provides a large number of services. Of course, we transport serious cancer patients to Rostov and Crimea, which are actively helping.
The most important element today is that cancer patients have access to medications and radiation therapy. This year we will also supply early diagnosis equipment, such as positron emission tomography and SPECT/CT, and have started providing cyclotrons for domestic radiopharmaceuticals. I would like to say that we have created a large number of diagnostic and treatment medications. For example, we have radiopharmaceuticals that can stabilise and save even metastatic prostate cancer patients.
The main achievement in this sphere is that the five-year survival rate is now at an all-time high at 67 percent, which is higher than the expected value.
(They continued to talk about diabetes prevention and equipment for endocrinology centres, a project for streamlined rehabilitation, which is particularly in demand, especially for those who have returned from the special military operation; the Long and Active Life Project, aimed at increasing life expectancy and reducing mortality.
The President and the Minister also discussed medical training and the Rural Doctor and the Rural Paramedic programmes that have encouraged more medical workers to work in small towns and rural areas.
The Minister spoke about developing personnel centres, mentorship programmes, and the implementation of information systems that allow aggregating data, retrieve and process information quickly. Mr Murashko reported to the President on the improvement of federal centres, which now receive advanced equipment and drive forward the entire healthcare system, making an enormous contribution. The number of telemedicine consultations has grown 70 times. Federal centres are involved in scientific research and development as well as in the clinical aspects of medical help. According to the Minister, the number of foreign patients wishing to receive help in Russia has increased.
Regarding the Family National Project, Mikhail Murashko reported on the upgrades of the perinatal care centres that had been timely opened across the country at the President’s instruction. Russia’s current infant mortality rate is at its historic low. The equipment for these centres is manufactured in Yekaterinburg, the Nizhny Novgorod Region and other locations. This year, we are starting to equip children’s hospitals, including with mobile checkup units for health checkup in schools and kindergartens. Currently, 89.3 percent of children up to 18 years old have access to regular checkups. Vladimir Putin also noted that, to increase the number of parents, it is important to make reproductive health checkups available to more men and women.)
Mikhail Murashko: A few more points. In medical science today, there is what I would call a real competitive drive among institutions. They are clearly delivering on the goals they have set for themselves – new drugs, for example. They have already announced new anticancer treatments, built facilities, started production, and are laying the groundwork for the future through fundamental research and work in artificial intelligence.
In regenerative medicine too, very solid progress has been made. Some drugs are in clinical trials, and new software products are being developed to diagnose hereditary diseases. You supported early screening for 40 newborn conditions. As of this year, that covers 42 conditions, with virtually no increase in funding. First, we have started producing the reagents ourselves. And second, we have streamlined all our costs, which means we can expand the scope of diagnostic testing using our own resources.
Vladimir Putin: That scope does need to be expanded, of course.
Mikhail Murashko: Every year, and we already have plans for next year.
Vladimir Putin: So parents can understand what is happening.
Mikhail Murashko: And the Circle of Goodness Foundation – the key thing here is not just making a diagnosis, but knowing what to do next. Once a diagnosis is made, and importantly, during screening – the child is born with no clinical signs yet…
Vladimir Putin: This needs to happen in the early stages of pregnancy.
Mikhail Murashko: From this year, we have included non-invasive screening in the programme. It allows us to take a blood sample from a woman and determine the baby’s risk of Down syndrome by isolating chromosomes directly from the mother’s bloodstream. With genetic technologies, we can do this without any invasive procedure. In the past, it was invasive, but now it can be done non-invasively – just a blood test, without interfering with the pregnancy. As of this year, this has also been included in the state guarantees programme. So enormous changes are happening every year, and the number of opportunities medicine offers today is growing. We are very clear that this needs to be localised here in this country.
Vladimir Putin: Absolutely. Thank you.