Issues of providing high-tech medical care were discussed in Smolensk

The Federal Center of Traumatology, Orthopedics and Endo-prosthetics in Smolensk hosted the field meeting of the Ministry of Health of the Russian Federation. The representatives of the Russian Health Ministry, heads and chief trauma and orthopedic specialists from the healthcare authorities of the regions got together to discuss the issues of high-tech medical care accessibility for citizens of Russia. Members of the federal centers of high medical technology also participated in the meeting.

During the meeting the participants learned about the specifics of managing federal health care institutions while examining the work of the Smolensk Center of Traumatology, Orthopedics and Endo-prosthetics.

The Center started working not long ago: the first operation took place on November, 16 last year. In 2012 the Center managed to reach the goal set for it by the Government - 370 patients received high-tech medical help. Now the Center is beginning to work to its full capacity which is six thousand surgeries a year. Since January, 16 more than 700 patients from nearly 30 Russian regions have been operated on here.

Citizens who need high-tech medical care are referred to the Smolensk Medical Center from different regions of Russia. According to Anatoly Ovsyankin, to help patients better it is necessary to address a number of organizational issues related to the managing authorities of health care in the regions of the Federation. It is also necessary to reduce the time which people who need medical assistance spend on the waiting list and to work out the stages of rehabilitation in the post-operative period. According to the Chief Doctor of the Federal Center of Traumatology, Orthopedics and Endo-prosthetics, it will allow to have continuity in the treatment: all the processes from receiving hi-tech help to rehabilitation will take place in the region. The medical facility has all the necessary resources to do this – the staff, material and technical equipment and structure. The Federal Medical Center is comprised of a polyclinic, traumatology and orthopedics departments with 150 beds for adults and 15 beds for children, operating rooms, an intensive care unit, radiology department, clinical diagnostics laboratories, functional diagnostics rooms and etc.

The participants of the meeting paid special attention to the problems in the work of Medical Boards in the regions who refer patients for treatment to Smolensk and other similar centers. As Head of the monitoring and analysis of certain types of specialized medical care department of the Health Ministry Marina Kochneva pointed out there was currently a large number of cases of unreasonable refusal to provide the citizens with high-tech medical care.

This happens when citizens should not have been sent to the federal Centers at all: if patients have certain contraindications or do not have the proper indications for a certain type of treatment. There are even cases when a number of patients are referred to the medical institutions that do not provide the required type of medical care. These cases indicate that the work of regional boards should be improved to be efficient.