NOVO-OGARYOVO, October 27. /TASS/. Russian President Vladimir Putin is certain that Russia mobilized its health service amid the coronavirus pandemic better than other counties.

At a meeting of the Council for Culture and the Arts on Tuesday an opinion was voiced the optimization of the health service resulted in a shortage of hospital beds during the pandemic.

"Keeping vacant beds for infected patients at a time when there is no pandemic makes no sense," Putin said. In his opinion, Russia "demonstrated the ability to mobilize the necessary resources better than any other country in the world."

"Nobody managed to mobilize the required number of beds as effectively and promptly, and not only for people with grave forms of COVID-19, but also for patients with light and medium forms," Putin said.

"This is unparalleled anywhere else in the world," Putin said. As an example he mentioned Britain, where patients with light forms of the disease are not admitted to hospitals at all.

At the same time, Putin acknowledged that the optimization of the health service was carried out not without certain drawbacks.

"At some places the optimization produced a situation where it takes a 100-kilometer ride to get elementary medical assistance," Putin said.