MOSCOW. Nov 20 (Interfax-AVN) - Servicemen account for 20 percent of the people treated by medical facilities of the Russian Defense Ministry; the rest are service veterans, other categories of people entitled to preferential treatment and so-called "commercial patients".
True capabilities of the military medicine make it impossible to increase the share of servicemen among its six million patients, a high-ranking official of the ministry's main military medical department said on Tuesday.
The medical care system of the Armed Forces suffers great overpressure, but still manages to provide assistance to a major share of other servicemen, the official said. Nevertheless, "some 50 percent of veterans and over 70 percent of members of servicemen's families cannot exercise their legitimate right to medical treatment in the military healthcare system," he stressed.
The situation results mostly from the system's gross underfinancing that amounts to 70 percent of the required funds. At the same time, the wear of materials and medical-diagnostic equipment makes 80 percent, the official said.
The system of medical rehabilitation and invigoration of citizens registered with medical facilities is practically disabled. "Military sanatoriums can provide their services to no more that seven percent of the contingent annually and only to 1.7 percent of the contingent in summer," the official noted.
"If leaders of the country and Defense Ministry fail to find a way to increase capacities of the military healthcare system, it may have collapsed by 2005 to 2007," the official concluded.