OREANDA-NEWS. December 19, 2012. Transcript of the beginning of the meeting:

Dmitry Medvedev: Ladies and gentlemen, we have met in St. Petersburg but the subject of our meeting concerns the entire country. Today I’d like us to discuss problems facing elderly people.

Let me recall that practically every fifth person in this country is advanced in years. There are tens of millions of them and their life must be a normal and decent human life, if you will. Their life largely depends on us, the Government, but not only it.

In the last few years we have been trying to improve the quality of life of the elderly in this country. I’m referring to social services, medical assistance and provision with medications, including essential ones. Prices of these medications do not grow quickly – about 3.5% per year. They are different in different regions but this is the national average and it stands below the rate of inflation. This is still an important change.

In 2012, 200,000 people over the age of 56 received high-tech medical aid. The total number of complex operations, including joint replacements with endoprosthesis, has grown. This number has grown considerably: 12,000 such operations were carried out in 2009; 31,000 in 2012. These operations improve the mobility and, most importantly, the independence of elderly people. They are able to work, to help their relatives, children and grandchildren.

Relevant regional programmes are being carried out in Russian regions. They improve the quality of life of the elderly. Representatives of regions are present here. Let them brief us on the successes of these programmes, on what is interesting and new. I’ve just visited a nursing home. I know that such homes are not found everywhere, in all regions, but this is good experience. I’ve just spoken to Mr Poltavchenko, the St Petersburg Governor, and he says they are going to erect up to 50 such homes, is that right? 

Georgy Poltavchenko: Yes.

Dmitry Medvedev: Yes, this is a large construction project. Why do I mention this? Because this is also good experience. The people residing in such homes are primarily lonely people without relatives or with relatives who live far away. But these elderly people live in normal conditions with normal services. I say it because such situation is rather rare, and there are problems concerned with the transfer of property – the minister told me about it, there are problems with conducting all these operations. However, this experience is interesting.

There are a lot of sensitive problems: people write to the Government and to the United Russia bodies. The main problems include hospitalisation, healthcare and sanatorium and resort treatment, and jobs for those who are still capable of working.

It is obvious that we need a whole range of measures helping to create a modern and efficient system of social support, social services. These are the goals of the state programme Social Support, which was approved by the Russian Government on November 29.

What are the concrete tasks? I’ll name them. The first task, which is very important in this country – there is a considerable gap in access to healthcare among the various regions. St Petersburg has one level of access, Siberia has a different level, and the Far East has another level, but our people live everywhere, and these are middle-aged and old people. Therefore, we have to introduce various forms of healthcare that are most suitable for a specific area with respect to lonely and sick people. I mean homecare, sitter services and mobile medical complexes. I have seen many such complexes, they are especially needed in rural areas, in distant provinces where healthcare is more complicated for understandable reasons.   

Second – the development of new forms of social services. And I hope that this will finally make it possible to eliminate the waiting list for servicing elderly people. Since 2006, this waiting list has reduced by over 7 times; yet the waiting list is still considerable. According to my data, it includes more than 35,000 people waiting for hospital services and home care in roughly equal proportions.

Third, social services institutions include a proportion of just over 1% of non-state institutions. Of course, the state will have to continue to perform a considerable amount of this work; the state cannot entrust this work to anybody else for understandable reasons. On the other hand, public-private partnerships, including with youth volunteer groups, businesses, charitable organisations, is the proper way to do this work, and we should become more active in this area. In addition, we have special budget funds earmarked for this. There is a special programme entitled Making State Support for Socially-Oriented Non-Profit Organisations More Effective. It has received good funding – 1.5 billion roubles for 2013.

Fourth, currently in Russia there are 10 million employees who are above the working age and, in addition, more than 300,000 pensioners who wish to work. We often hear about the coming workforce shortage, but as a rule elderly people are skilled and can be useful to their country, to their town or village, to themselves, to their relatives, because when an individual works, he has an active life. This is a personal issue, everyone must decide for themselves, but on the whole this is the right solution; it is necessary to extend professional longevity, including in apprenticeship programmes, in the system of vocational education and at enterprises.  

Practically 15% of people of preretirement and retirement age want to acquire vocational education, or improve their skills, or acquire new skills. Once I visited the House of Veterans and saw some veterans learning how to use a computer, which is a good thing. Mr Poltavchenko, I see you are nodding, as you should be. It will be necessary to create computer classrooms in all 18 veteran councils in the city. The cost is not high – my colleagues say it will cost about 1 million roubles; but this will help our dear veterans and the older generation to learn the values of civilisation. Sometimes computers help; and they also help people speak with relatives or write a letter – which is also a good thing to do.

Among the people wishing to improve their skills, 70% have secondary or higher education. They are well trained and definitely deserve better prospects than a job as a concierge or a security guard at a car park.

We have many examples of people living an active and productive life even at a very advanced age. Tourism (as far as it is possible) and cultural leisure should not only prolong lifespan but make these years meaningful. Such examples should become routine rather than a lucky exception. This is the task not only for the state but for all of society, because obviously the responsibility of every human being extends beyond his or her children but also to the older generation. This is how society is arranged and this is normal. I hope that the governors of the regions will be guided by these principles.

I have tentatively outlined a range of issues. I will be happy to hear other proposals on improving the quality of life of the elderly people. Let’s listen to some brief remarks by the Minister of Labour and the Minister of Healthcare. Mr Topilin, (Maxim Topilin, Minister of Labour and Social Security) let’s start with you.