MOSCOW, November 9 (Itar-Tass) —— The Russian government will expand medicine supply to the population as part of the healthcare development programme until 2020.
Under the programme, an additional 120 billion roubles will be allocated to this end annually from 2016, Health Minister Veronika Skvortsova said.
“There is a whole sub-programme in the healthcare development programme that deals with medicine supply. It provides substantial funding, primarily for outpatient treatment,” Skvortsova said.
As before, children under the age of 3 are provided with medicines at the expense of the budget. There are also people who are entitled to various benefits. “One of the major tasks is to provide medicines to children and elderly people,” the minister said.
In the future, adults who are not entitled to benefits will be able to seek 50-percent compensation for their medical expenses depending on how they keep up their health: whether they have addictions and whether they pass regular medical examination. This will not apply to children and elderly people.
“While now the state spends 90 billion roubles from the federal budget to provide for people entitled to benefits and regions in aggregate spend even more, the programme will provide additional funding in the amount of 120 billion roubles,” Skvortsova said. This will bring the overall expenditures on medicine supply to more than 200 billion roubles.