by Nikolai Tsirelnikov
and Vyacheslav Pleshkov
The social and economic crisis
in Russia has caused the drastic deterioration of the demographic
and medical characteristics of its population: significant increases
in the rates of sickness and mortality, and significant decreases
in the rates of longevity and birth. The Siberian population is
in an even worse situation:
its mortality rate is higher than that of Russia as a whole. Unfortunately,
Siberia's health institutions, which were established and developed
in the former USSR, are unable to survive the lack of financing
from federal budgetary or insurance sources. In Novosibirsk, for
example, more than half of the medical equipment is now out-of-date.
There is a possibility that Siberian health professionals can
surmount these difficulties by restructuring local medical institutions
and developing legislation.