State Council on Social Welfare discusses ways of improving care provision

Deputy Prime-Minister proposes that unemployed and business people should participate in providing long-term care

24.05.2019

Deputy Prime Minister Tatiana Golikova has said that people nearing retirement age should be encouraged to train in providing social and medical long-term care. An official system to support this should be developed.

Speaking at a meeting of the State Council on Social Welfare, Golikova stressed that many people who have reached pre-retirement age, or are unemployed, now often choose to take further training in the caring professions.

‘This should be encouraged and, to do so, it needs to be made clear that the state has initiated this, and that it is viewed not a temporary job but a long-term commitment’, Golikova said, according to TASS .

The involvement of the business community in financing long-term care should also be promoted the Deputy Prime Minister argues. The funding of long-term care system is an important issue, especially for the regions, so ‘we cannot write off the participation of our entrepreneurs’.

‘Of course, this will involve a partnership between the private and public sectors, but it seems to me that the desire of colleagues to participate in work such as this should be given special backing,’ Golikova added.

According to RIA Novosti, it is proposed that Russia’s regions should be invited to amend their normative documents and the Law on Social Services. They could also be asked to clarify their approach to health protection legislation from the point of view of practical geriatric care.

Golikova also proposed that the Russian system of social insurance should be built up along the lines of Western models for long-term care.

‘Obviously, it will not be a standard form of insurance. We must work on it substantively to offer long-term care insurance either on its own or as part of a combined policy,’ she said.

At the meeting of the State Council on Social Welfare, the head of the ‘Vera’ Hospice Charity Foundation, Nyuta Federmesser, also proposed further discussion on the recently adopted bill about the presence of family members in intensive care. She expressed concern that the law might contradict existing regulations and prohibit a mother from staying with her child in intensive care.

‘The bill has popular appeal because it says visiting is permitted — but visits were not denied in the past. The wording also states that it is “in accordance with a procedure being developed by the executive authorities”, which is to suggest that in the wake of this amendment a further restriction is likely to be added. Yet Article 323-FZ used to allow mothers to be with their children around the clock. The new amendment has, in fact, annulled this,’ Federmesser argued.

In her opinion, the new bill and the existing law are contradictory. The first refers to staying with patients ‘around-the-clock’, while the new one mentions ‘visiting’ according to rules yet to be drawn up by the Federal Executive Authorities. Tatiana Golikova promised to address this inconsistency, RIA Novosti reports.

On Wednesday, 22 May 2019, the Federation Council approved the Law on granting relatives the right to visit patients in intensive care. Currently, visiting is permitted at the discretion of hospital management.

Source:  https://www.asi.org.ru/news/2019/05/24/golikova-dolgovremennyj-uhod/

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