Russian Communist lawmakers want to ban state officials from undergoing treatment abroad

Russia’s Communist lawmakers have come out with an initiative to ban state officials to undergo medical treatment abroad. The ban is seen as an instrument to promote the development of the domestic healthcare system, the newspaper Izvestia writes in its Thursday issue, citing Communist lawmaker Vladimir Fedotkin.

Only when state officials have no option other than to undergo treatment at home, they will be really interested in stimulating the development of the domestic health sector, with better control of the quality of personnel training and medical services, the lawmaker claims.

“Our polyclinic for lawmakers has only foreign-made equipment. Nonetheless, people prefer to undergo treatment abroad,” Fedotkin said. “So, it’s not only equipment that matters. Even there are doubts in the quality of services even at such polyclinics as ours, what can I say about ordinary, grass-roots institutions.”

He said he planned to submit this bill to the Russian State Duma lower parliament house by the end of the spring session.
Sergei Kalashnikov, the chairman of the State Duma’s health protection committee supported the initiative of his colleague, the newspaper writes.