vlad.tribnet.com / Issue #153 / Social life / Reading article...

The presidential representative to Primorye temporarily headed off a crisis in the health care system by securing 10 billion rubles ($169,491) from the federal government for maternity wards and children’s hospitals.

Victor Kondratov, also head of the Federal Security Bureau in the krai, told the Vladivostok News Oct. 21 that the children’s hospital and maternity wards were the neediest of all the city’s unfunded hospitals and clinics. No money was provided to the city psychiatric hospital, which also reported it hasn’t received money since July.

But maternity clinics and take priority, Kondratov said. “While problems are being solved and discussion is going on, people should not suffer,” he said.

The two kinds of clinics represent “the beginning of life, so we have to care for them.”

Kondratov’s move brings an increasingly familiar resolution to a crisis in local government: City funding dries up. Kondratov or Gov. Yevgeny Nazdratenko step in with money for a short-term solution. And the crisis is postponed.

In this instance, the money came as the city and the Compulsory Medical Insurance Fund squabbled over who was at fault. Yevgeny Levashov, head of the fund, blamed the city in a joint press conference with representatives of the hospitals held the day before Kondratov’s announcement. He said the city has failed to pay its share to the fund, which then passes the money on to the hospitals.

But – in a contradiction typical of the claims and counterclaims in the case – acting mayor Nikolai Markovtsev told the Vladivostok Broadcasting Company that an independent audit shows the city did indeed hand over the money. The money disappeared while in the hands of the insurance fund, he suggested.

Nikolai Beletsky, deputy mayor for health and education, refused to comment to the Vladivostok News on the federal bailout. This is because the paper’s publisher, the daily Vladivostok, has been unfair in its coverage of the city, he said.

Valery Prikhodko, a Primorye Duma deputy and head of the krai health department, said at the press conference that the krai had offered to take over 15-20 city hospitals and clinics in order to end the crisis. But he said he had never heard a response from the city to his proposal.

Vitaly Menilkov, chief physician of Maternity Clinic No. 1, said that without the infusion of money, lives would have been at risk. Appeals to Mayor Victor Cherepkov have never worked, he said. “The mayor’s past doesn’t give us any hope or better perspective for the future,” he said.

Victor Kasian, head of the children’s clinic, criticized the krai for the mess. And he offered a Soviet-style method of dealing with those who interfere with urgent health care.

“I already told the FSB: All those guys ought to be shot for such a crime,” Kasian said.