russia Is Losing Affordable Healthcare

Amendments to russian legislation that are due to come into force on January 1, 2026, will deepen the shortage of personnel in the healthcare system, despite the stated goal of “improving the quality of medical education”.  The new requirements significantly complicate the process of accreditation of graduates and introduce tough financial sanctions for failure to comply with the conditions of targeted training: a fine of three times the cost of education. This is already causing concern among students, who are less and less willing to study on a state-funded basis with mandatory work in provincial public hospitals.

The unwillingness of young doctors to practice in the provinces and rural areas is already having disastrous consequences for ordinary russians.

In Veliky Novgorod, there is a shortage of staff at ambulance stations: for a population of more than 220,000, the city should have 25 teams, but only 7 to 11 are on duty. Doctors complain about low salaries and switch to other jobs.

In Yoshkar-Ola, out of 29 scheduled crews, only four are fully staffed. The salary of ambulance drivers has decreased by 16 % over the past two years and is now 1.5 times less than that of a city trolleybus driver.

In general, as of 2025, russia needs  approximately 23.3 thousand doctors and 63.5 thousand paramedics. In rural areas, the shortage of doctors is sometimes as high as 50 %. All in all, by 2030, the russian economy needs to attract 496 thousand healthcare workers with specialized and higher education. Against this background, the country’s medical education institutions have raised tuition fees for major specialties by 30-35 %.