Russia Healthcare Russia- Healthcare Concerns

Russia Healthcare

Russia- Healthcare Concerns

The objective of this work is to review the healthcare concerns of Russia and specifically as related to AIDS/HIV, the blood supply and other major health concerns in the country.

Russia is located on the Northern Asian continent between Europe and the Pacific Ocean and spans an area of 17.075,200 square kilometers and is slightly larger (1.8 times) the size of the United States. Russia's climate is said to range from "steppes in the south through humid continental in European Russia" to subartic temperatures in Siberia and in the polar north to have a tundra climate. Winter weather is a variation from cool in the Black Sea coastal area to frigidly cold in Siberia with variation in the summer characterized by warm weather in the steppes to cool air along the Artic coast. (Russian Demographics, 2005) the population of Russia as of July 1994 is stated at 149,608,953. (Ibid)

U.S. Embassy Travelers Advisory

According to the U.S. Embassy in Russia all Americans traveling to Russia should make sure that their diptheria immunization is up-to-date as well as their typhoid immunization. The U.S. Embassy warns that travelers should be careful of what they are consuming in foods and beverages and that they should drink only bottled water or water that has been boiled. Reported October 31, 2006 is that a court in Russian has ordered a regional blood bank to pay thousands to a woman who caught AIDS via a transfusion. (United Press International, 2006) According to many reports the blood supply in Russia is severely contaminated.

II. Russian Health Reform recent report entitled: "Russia Readies Radical Health Care Reform" states that: "According to an age-old proverb, it is better to be rich and healthy than poor and sick - a saying made all the more true in a country where some say the public health care system is nearly as ill as its patients. Russian health care has not been seriously reformed since the collapse of the former Soviet Union in 1991. But earlier this year, the Russian government launched a so-called national projects plan that aims to improve four sectors of Russian life, including health care." (McAdams, 2006) in fact it is reported that over the last ten years the health of the "average Russian has grown 'significantly worse'. Life expectancy is stated to have "fallen from 70 years to 65 with Russian men at particular risk." (McAdams, 2006) Stated to be the three major causes of illness in the country of Russian are those of: (1) respiratory disease; (2) circulatory disorders; and (3) alcohol related injury and poisoning." (Ibid) Furthermore the rates of infection of HIV / AIDS and Tuberculosis is "sky rocketing." (McAdams, 2006) the problem seems top be that healthcare concerns are not very high on the list of priorities of the government of Russia. However, there are reports that doctors in the country are simply not well prepared to perform their function.

III. World's Most Polluted Places