Health news
14/05/2005 A new WHO web site for managers of health services
After a broad consultation including the Regional Offices, some WHO
country offices, NPO`s in the African Regions, representatives from
health districts in low income countries (invited to various WHO
meetings), technical programmes within HQ, and some hard work pulling
together all the material collected, we are pleased to announce that:
EIP/SPO is launching a new WHO website designed for and dedicated to
operational managers in resource-scarce settings - everything they need
on management brought together in one place.
MAKER is a website which brings together materials on management from
all over WHO as well as from other organizations, into one easy to
navigate website. The target audience is managers involved with service
delivery at sub-national and facility or community level in resource
limited settings.
The name MAKER is an acronym: Managers, taking Action based on Knowledge
and Effective use of resources to achieve Results.
MAKER also has interactive aspect, with opportunities for users to
submit their experience from the field, and to give feedback on the
usefulness of materials linked to the site: http://www.who.int/management/
14/05/2005 Medical bomb
To begin with, we’ll speak first about the forgery medications on home drugstore counters. According to the experts, about 20 – 25% of all medications, sold in Russia, are forgery. In the suggested project of amendments to the Act of Medicines we can find the word combination “forgery medications” thrice. However nobody has ever decoded this strange definition. And if there’s no definition to corpus delicti, there’s no crime.
It’s hard to believe that suggesting this enactment senators (Boris Shpigel and Igor Brintsalov, deputies of the State Dume Tatiana Yakovleva and Andrei Markov) do not even suspect about the complicated thing.
As one of innovations, they suggest introducing into praxis the definition of international non-patent name for medications (INPN). In the enactment it is defined as “the name of a medicine, advised by the International Public Health Organization (IPHO)”. As the response to my application to comment upon this definition, the leading Russian pharmacologist Alexander Arzamastsev could say nothing useful.
“It’s enough to know that INPN is the chemical mixture of a medication”, Arzamatsev said. That’s how the INPN reflects only the inner composition of a medicine but not it’s name.
Almost all pharmaceutical manufactures opposed the enactment. If one follows these amendments and prescribes the necessary medications according to INPN, why should pharmaceutical manufactures do their best to produce more or less new and effective medical preparations: nobody will differentiate among them anyway.
The list of disadvantages can be discussed for ages. However we are interested in one more question: How don’t the “parents” of these amendments notice their own slips? Though there’s a lawyer, a doctor a distributor and a manager of pharmaceutical manufacture. The thing that the project isn’t found on the official site of the Committee in Health Defense of the State Duma (though the committee is the co-executer) makes me nervous.
Raphael Mardanov
The source: mednovosti.ru
Full text is available only in the Russian version.
13/05/2005 Common patient
How should look the Medicine of today in our country?
The constitution of the Russian Federation makes provision for free medical aid rendering, but we are made to establish the fact that it has become paid far before.
The first central problem is the organization of the treatment on the whole. If a person gets ill, he’s taken to hospital, where he’s examined during 20 – 25 days. The government pays for his nourishment, support, but the person is rendered no medical aid, more than that he buys the medications and sometimes even sheets himself. After the 20 days of hospital, when actually he should be discharged, he’s at last diagnosed and only then treated. By what and how? If the diagnosis is serious, he is usually said the following: we have no appropriate equipment and conditions in our hospital, because the region is too poor.
Today all medical institutions are under the jurisdictions of the regions, most of which can’t allow keeping these institutions well-provided. As the result the government finances not a common person but the medical institutions; that means that it assigns money to public utilities and wages to doctors. That’s how we don’t treat patients – we just have no free money on it.
The second problem is that there’s no cooperation between the out patients’ clinics and hospitals. If a person is hospitalized, he’s taken analyses in his out patients’ clinic, and then he’s taken to hospital and after certain number of days he has to finish the cure himself. At that a doctor from a hospital doesn’t believe a doctor from an out patients’ clinic, thus the patient has to pass analyses procedure afresh.
The third problem is that there is no urgent medical help. The so-called ambulance doesn’t actually render help: it can be too late when it at last gets to the patient. If the patient is taken to hospital at night, he’s only examined by the duty doctor. Thus if we’re speaking about effective medical aid, the list of problems is enormous.
There are several important departments in medicine: oncology, diabetes, TB. Each of them should be under the jurisdiction of the national services. This will be a basis of introducing certain standards in treatment.
Meanwhile the International Bank and the International Public Health Organization finance some our unknown experimental projects, though we can ourselves teach them haw to cure e.g. the TB. The home methodology allows revealing it in the initial stage.
Boris Shpigel, the acting chairman of the Committee attached the Council of the Federation in science, culture, education, public health service and ecology
Full text is available only in the Russian version.
13/05/2005 The majority of Russians find the innovation “a family doctor” capable of decreasing the medical system of Russia
Only 23,3% of Russians believe that the introduction into praxis family doctors (general practitioners) will cause good consequences. This is according to the data of the public-opinion poll, guided by the company “Bashkirova and Company” that took place in April of the current year.
1500 citizens of Russia at the age from 18 and older have been polled. The situation will turn for worse – 31,6%; and 32,6% believe that the situation will not change. Furthermore a lot of medical men completely agree with common people. They are also sure that the quality of service will decrease and in the first place this will adversely affect children health service.
The Minister of Health and Social Development approved the enactment connecting the creation of “general practitioner system”. According to these reformers, a family doctor cures about 80 – 90% of diseases. The major advantage of such a doctor is that he economizes the budget money, as it’s easier to reveal diseases and cure them during the initial stages, saving money on equipment and expensive medications. The majority of positive answers were got in little towns and villages, when the greatest number of negative ones was given by the dwellers of Moscow-city.
“One specialist will have to fulfill the functions of pediatrician, gynecologist and physician, -believes professor Leonid Roshal.- Even the most genius general practitioner, who studied a bit here and a bit there, will never be more professional than a specialist, graduated after six years of education”.
“In many countries of Europe (Great Britain, the Netherlands, Spain, Finland and some others) the system of family doctors was traditionally used. But it appeared to be far from being perfect. In particular in England a lot of people complain of huge queues and low qualification of general practitioners”, declares the manager of social pediatristics of the Scientific Centre of Health Valery Albitsky to RBC daily.
The reaction to the general practitioners, who have been already put to practice in 25 regions, appeared to be distinctly negative.
According to the data of the International Public Health Organization, Russian government assigns money on public health service 2 times lower of the necessary minimum.
The source: Pharmindex.ru
11/05/2005 What changes will cause the new amendments to Act of Medicines?
The brief meeting guided by the executive manager of AIMP (Associative International Pharmaceutical Manufactures) Sergey Boboshko took part on May 11, 2005 in the conference-hall of AIPM. The central topic of the meeting was the attitude of AIPM to the new amendments to Act of Medicines.
Mr. Boboshko expounded the attitude of the first-rate European and Western pharmaceutical manufactures towards inserting amendments into Act of Medicines and the possible sequences for the pharmaceutical market and all groups of citizens on the whole:
“The enactment doesn’t correspond to the international developed experience of supporting overt market, expansion of range of goods and increasing the quality of medical service. The enactment liquidates the investment appeal of Russia to import companies and what’s more delimitates the right of each member of the society to choose the necessary medications themselves. For this and some other reasons the AIPM doesn’t support the majority of the amendments to the Act”.
In his speech Mr. Boboshko commented on the position of some international pharmaceutical manufactures:
The intensification of the control over prices on medications by the government presupposes the regulating of prices on all medications (including those that are fixed and realized beyond the program “Benefit 2005”). The similar practice in other countries led to excessive red tape process, was the cause of extinction of use of innovative medical preparations out of range of goods and appeared to be ineffective.
Redistribution of the regulator functions of the Ministry of Health and Social Development and adjoining departments contradicts the gist of recently presented administrative reform.
The full text of comments is available only in the Russian version.
Additional information can be found:
PR-agency creative-studio “Pressto” (095) 101-35- 23, Elena Kulkova.
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