Sverdlovsk Region Minister for Health Mikhail Sklyar met a group of regional Duma deputies on March 28, 2007 to discuss the healthcare success in the first quarter of 2007. It was revealed that the region had about 100,000 medical prescriptions that were supposed to have been subsidized by the federal authorities, with 25,000 people still waiting to get their medicines. The participants though it best to allot 100 million RUR from the region’s reserve fund to cover the prescriptions; moreover, should the federal authorities fail to pay their share of social benefits in the following quarters of the year, another 350 million will be allotted.


‘Having made this decision, we must make it clear that this money has to be paid back to us. Our Territorial Obligatory Insurance Fund must be reimbursed within this year,’ maintains Sverdlovsk Region Duma deputy Evgeniya Talashkina.