Health news
10/07/2006 Civil G8 2006: NGOs seek to form global agenda
International Forum “Civil G8 2006” has set off in Moscow, reports REGNUM correspondent. The forum is the civil society prelude to G8 Summit in St. Petersburg.
The forum will discuss problems of global energy security, professional education, HIV/AIDS prevention, social and economic policy making for the sake of sustainable development, human rights protection, biodiversity protection and opposition to the GMO expansion, and the business-society interaction. The conclusions of the forum will be handed to the G8 presidents as recommendations for their relevant work.
While opening the forum, the coordinator of the National Working Group of the Civil G8 Advisory Council, the chairwoman of Russia’s Presidential Council for the Support of Civil Society and Human Rights Protection Institutions Ella Pamfilova said that the key topic of the forum will be civil society, its interaction with governments and mechanisms of monitoring the fulfillment of G8 resolutions.
The member of the National Working Group of Civil G8 Advisory Council, the president of the Social Compact National Project Institute Alexander Auzan noted that “people often take the work done by society and business for government’s achievements.” Hence, he pointed out that society should effectively organize itself and engage in active interaction with governments. “It is important that we should stop just reacting to the agenda we are offered and start perceiving ourselves as a new source of agenda,” Auzan said. He reminded the audience that NGOs and governments have agreed that the agenda of the next G8 Summit will be formed on the basis of NGOs’ recommendations. “The horizon of governments is often limited by electoral cycle, while civil society is responsible for time continuity. Hence, it is highly essential for us to raise and to discuss global policy problems,” Auzan said.
“G8 should not turn into a closed cartel. It should listen to what people in other countries say,” Secretary General of SIVICUS NGO (World Alliance for Citizen Participation) Kumi Naidoo (SAR) said. NGOs should continue to pressure the G8 governments into implementing their decisions, first of all, on global poverty reduction – a process launched in 1995 but developing much slower than expected.
The chairman of the Committee for World Parliament, the chairman of the Global Governance Group (France) Olivier Giscard d’Estaing said that business society, NGOs, and religious organizations are, perhaps, more influential in the world today that governments are. That’s why the sides should cooperate.
“We should not keep demanding something from governments, we should offer our services and cooperation,” d’Estaing said. He noted that civil society can be really indispensable in reducing social tension and raising security through civil education.
Attending the forum are representatives of a whole number of global NGOs: CIVICUS, Social Watch, International Association of Consumers, World Women Council, WWF, International Organization for Poverty Reduction, Greenpeace International, Transparency International, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch.
“Russia is represented by all those NGOs who have something to say,” Pamfilova said: particularly, “Memorial” Human Rights Center, Publicity Protection Foundation, Independent Legal Expertise Council, Civil Assistance Committee, Social Verdict Foundation, Social Partnership Foundation and a number of NGOs from the regions.
The forum is finishing its work July 4. Russian President Vladimir Putin is supposed to speak at the forum on that day as the president of G8 acting chair-state.
www.regnum.ru/english/666800.html
10/07/2006 Meeting on the course of implementation of the Initiative “Coordination in activity”: Application of “the three key principles” in the Russian Federation
In 2005 the Ministry of Heath and Social development of the RF in cooperation with UNAIDS started the implementation of the initiative “Coordination in activity”. State structures and public organizations with the support of The Department of International Development and The Swiss International Development Agency participated in the implementation of the Initiative. The Initiative was aimed at expanding the resistance to HIV epidemic and providing maximum access to prevention and treatment of HIV by means of developing national strategy and appropriate normative documents, improving coordination, creating a single system of monitoring and evaluation.
At the meeting there would be an exchange of opinions about the course of implementation of the project, there would also be a discussion of the perspectives of the expansion of activity and possibility of a long-term cooperation between the MoHSD and UNAIDS within the frame work of the Initiative “Coordination in Activity”.
The following people were going to participate at the meeting: R.A. Khalphin . Deputy Minister of Health and Social Development, Erkan Murat. Permanent coordinator of UNO in the RF, Bertil Lyndblad, Head of the Representative office of UNAIDS in the RF.and also the representatives of the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Defense, Federal Service for Surveillance on Consumer Rights Protection and Human Well-being, Federal Centre for AIDS prevention, CNIIOZ, Russian Orthodox Churches, NGOs, PLWHA communities, DfID of the UK, SIDA, USAID and other participants of the Initiative “Coordination in activity”.
http://www.mzsrrf.ru/news/313.html
10/07/2006 The symposium of the World Alliance for Patient Safety takes place in Moscow.
As a result of the first year of cooperation between the Ministry of Health and the World Alliance for Patient Safety of WHO the country is about to face the global research on this issue, specification of statistical indicators of quality and number of medical errors, and also ideological changes of the MoH starting from the control of doctors’ mistakes to the quality provision of patient safety. It was said on June, 3 by the representative of the MoH, the Director of Central Public Health Research Institute Julia Mikhailova, when she was giving a speech at the press-conference in Moscow.
“The problem of a medical error is the problem with many influencing factors, starting from policy in health protection down to a clean floor in the ward “– said J.Mikhailova .However, before moving to problem solution, Russian health care will have to learn objective ascertaining of all the cases of medical errors and the change of statistical indicators thanks to which many errors drop out of sight of health professionals, officials and community. “Unless we study the scale and the causes of the problem it will be impossible to work out a plan to solve it” – the Chief of the MoH concluded.
Besides, Russia needs to carry out scaled research which would clearly indicate what is vital, where the investments are needed and where not, where the control for quality safety and legal influence are needed, and where the provision of this quality is needed”. “That is why in scientific policy we have stepped away from the system of quality control as a basis of patient safety, we have come to a new ideology of quality provision. A doctor having just a tonometer won’t be able to provide any care even if he were smart “– J.Mikhailova added.
As Director of Federal Public Health Institute where the Federal Centre for health care quality provision is situated Julia Mikhailova believes that the elements of provision can be both personnel and organizational. Although up to now there hasn’t been any global epidemiological and population research on this topic, J. Mikhailova is sure that in Russia there are enough organizational factors to improve patient safety”. As Director of the Institute and the representative of MoH I hope that our systematic work with the Alliance for Patient Safety will have long-term perspectives’ – she concluded.
Note from IA REGNUM: The World Alliance for Patient Safety was created by the WHO in October 2004. The purpose of its activity is research and prevention of the most critical risks connected with health care provision. According to the data from the WHO, in developed countries one in every ten patients admitted to hospital suffers some form of preventable harm that can result severe disability and even death. Presently, The Alliance is implementing a program “Clean care is safer care” aimed at infections connected with health care provision.
Source: IA REGNUM
26/06/2006 GENEVA -- Leaders of the World Health Organization (WHO) and UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund, are coordinating action to reverse the global trend of deteriorating levels of sexual and reproductive health and reduce the adverse impact on mot
GENEVA -- Leaders of the World Health Organization (WHO) and UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund, are coordinating action to reverse the global trend of deteriorating levels of sexual and reproductive health and reduce the adverse impact on mothers, babies and young people.
Globally, inadequate sexual and reproductive health services have resulted in maternal deaths and rising numbers of sexually transmitted infections (STIs), particularly in developing countries. WHO estimates that 340 million new cases of sexually transmitted bacterial infections, such as chlamydia and gonorrhoea occur annually in people aged 15 - 49. Many are untreated because of lack of access to services. In addition, millions of cases of viral infection, including HIV, occur every year. The sexually transmitted human papilloma virus (HPV) infection is closely associated with cervical cancer, which is diagnosed in more than 490 000 women and causes 240 000 deaths every year.
Around eight million women who become pregnant each year suffer life-threatening complications as a result of sexually transmitted infections and poor sexual health. Annually, an estimated 529 000 women, almost all in developing countries, die during pregnancy and childbirth from largely preventable causes.
"There is a really worrying rise in the number and severity of sexually transmitted infections," says Dr Anders Nordström, Acting Director-General, WHO. "But the consequences of poor sexual and reproductive health go well beyond STIs. They lead directly to completely preventable illness and death. It is unacceptable today for a woman to die in childbirth, or for a person to become HIV positive for lack of information and resources."
Young people are particularly vulnerable. More than 100 million curable sexually transmitted infections occur each year and a significant proportion of the 4.1 million new HIV infections occur among 15-to-24 year olds. In sexually active adolescents (aged 10-19 years), sexual and reproductive health problems include early pregnancy, unsafe abortion, STIs including HIV, and sexual coercion and violence.
http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2006/pr34/ru/index.html
26/06/2006 On June 21, the Ministry of Health and Social Development hosted a meeting of inter-departmental work group of the Council under the President of RF on priority national project ‘Health” on the implementation of priority national projects.
On June 21, the Ministry of Health and Social Development hosted a meeting of inter-departmental work group of the Council under the President of RF on priority national project ‘Health” on the implementation of priority national projects.
The participants of the meeting discussed a quarterly report of the Ministry of Health and Social Development of Russia to the Government of the RF on the issues of providing additional payments to health workers of the primary level of healthcare, on the course of making state contracts on provision of medical equipment and drugs into regions, on the issues of mass media coverage of the national project.
A.M. Taranov made a speech about additional payments to health workers of the primary level of healthcare for the period of 5 months of 2006.
12.8 billion rubles were assigned from the Federal budget to additional payments to health workers in 2006. FFCMI (Federal Fund of Compulsory Medical Insurance) on the basis of application forms of its territorial funds monthly transfers subventions to make payments to these health workers. Subventions include money to pay a single social tax, insurance installments for compulsory pension insurance, insurance installments for compulsory social insurance from occupational accidents and illnesses, and also district coefficients.
The volume of funding used in health facilities to provide payments in January-February amounted to 4, 9 billion rubles. In May 1, 4 billion rubles (with coefficients to the salary in the regions and areas with severe climatic conditions) were transferred to make payments to health facilities.
Presently, the FFCMI together with the Ministry of Health and Social Development are considering an issue of participation of departmental healthcare institutions and health organizations in providing additional medical help. Upon adoption of the bill “On changes in the Federal Law “On budget of the Federal Fund of Compulsory Medical Insurance for 2006” about 5000 health workers of departmental healthcare organizations will get additional payments. It will take 5, 8 billion rubles to provide payments till the end of the year taking into consideration this offer from the FFCMI.
The Head of ROSZDRAV (Russian Healthcare) B.A.Prokhorov spoke about the provision of health equipment and drugs in the regions on state contracts.
By June 15 2006, ROSZDRAV made 78 state contracts with 55 suppliers for the total sum of about 23 billion rubles.
Deliveries happen according to the schedule. By June 20, the regions had received 1243 units of diagnostic equipment, 345 units of laboratory equipment, 311 units of ultrasonic equipment, 184 units of endoscopic equipment, 355 X-ray machines and 48 electrocardiographs. Besides, 606 ambulance cars were delivered.
As for the provision of drugs and diagnostic equipment all medical-genetic laboratories are equipped with test-system kits to carry out neonatal screening. Deliveries of immunological medicines for this year are 90,655 completed, of ARVs are 41, 60% completed and of test-systems for HIV, hepatitis B and C diagnostic are 27,13% completed.
Deliveries are carried out in exact accordance with the application forms received from the regions. Provision of health facilities with new equipment is planned to be completed by the end of 2007, after that these health facilities will have to go through licensing. Health facilities will not be able to get a license to continue their medical activity if the level of their technical equipment doesn’t meet the requirements.
One of the main questions considered at the meeting was the discussion of the demographic situation in the country within the framework of the implementation of the Message of the President of the RF to the Federal Meeting of the RF in 2006. Head of the department of analysis and forecast of the development of healthcare and social-labor area V.F. Kolbanov made a report on this topic.
The key element in the solution of demographic problems is the measures focused on mortality reduction and birth-rate increase in Russia.
The state of affairs at the Ministry of Health influence the mortality indicators of the population. The change of the situation in the Russian healthcare and consequently, the strengthening of the national health – is a priority task which is being implemented within the framework of the national project “Health”: increase of access and quality healthcare first of all in the primary level, development of diagnostics and prevention of diseases, including effective clinic system for capable to work categories of population, and, of course, increase in volume of hi-tech care provision.
Presently, the Ministry of Health and Social Development is preparing a program of preventable mortality and traumatism reduction, including industrial injuries, road accidents, from alcohol poisoning.
During the process of working out measures aimed at increasing the quality of health services provided to women during pregnancy and childbirth, to newborns, it is planned to increase the volume of funding the birth certificate from 7000 to 10 000 rubles. For these purposes 4 billion rubles are additionally assigned in 2007.
In order to prevent illnesses and complications during pregnancy and childbirth it is proposed to increase the cost of the birth certificate at women’s clinic from 2 000 to 3 000 rubles. Additional funding is directed to provide pregnant women with vitamins, micronutrients and iron deficiency drugs.
The cost of the birth certificate in the maternity hospital will rise from 5 000 to 6 000 rubles, which will be used to encourage the staff of maternity hospitals considering the volume and quality of health services provision, and the opinion of the patients.
1 000 rubles is planned to be sent to children’s polyclinics nearest to a child’s home and to pay out no sooner than in 6 months after the birth considering the state of health of a newborn.
Besides, there is set of activities aimed at stimulating families to have children, supporting children in a severe life situation.
http://www.mzsrrf.ru/news/
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