OREANDA-NEWS. November 24, 2009. Nobody is planning to punish medical doctors that receive monetary incentives from pharmaceutical companies, said Igor Artemyev, the Head of the Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS Russia), opening a session of the Expert Council for Developing Competition in Social Sphere and Health Care, reported the press-centre of FAS Russia.

"Our inspections showed that in the last 20 years a situation has developed in Russia when medical doctors have got into certain dependence on pharmaceuticals. When in the 1990-s doctors' salary was around 2000 Rubles, financial assistance from pharmaceutical companies enabled to keep professional medical officers in the health care system", believes Igor Artemyev.

The Head of FAS Russia reminded of the Law of the Russian Federation on Civil Service, which imposes certain restrictions upon officials. "Russia must adopt a similar law that would exclude possibility of a conflict of interest for medical doctors", is convinced Igor Artemyev.

The Head of the Federal Antimonopoly Service called upon the members of the Expert Council and the invited guests to raise their comments and proposals regarding the draft normative legal acts devised by the Antimonopoly Service. Igor Artemyev pointed out that the Russian Federation must introduce the norms long established in the European Union.

Also the Head of FAS Russia emphasized that discrimination of private medical institutions against the state ones remains an important problem of the health care system. "We have already initiated many cases regarding discrimination of private medical institutions throughout the whole country and we believe it is necessary to give equal rights to private and state medical institutions in state procurement", said Igor Artemyev.