Russia's war against Ukraine probably led to a shortage of medical workers throughout the territory of the aggressor country.
The war in Ukraine led to a shortage of medical workers in the Russian Federation
According to intelligence, after the mobilization of the Russian army in September 2022, medical workers were warned not to leave the country, but up to 2% of doctors and medical workers fled Russia to avoid conscription.
Also, up to 3,000 medical workers were probably mobilized to provide medical aid during the hostilities.
In November 2023, the Ministry of Health of Russia stated that the medical sector lacks about:
26,500 doctors;
58,200 average medical personnel.
In particular, there is a significant shortage of doctors in 22 regions of Russia, and in another 7 the shortage is assessed as acute.
According to an estimate for January 2024, the number of doctors in Russia decreased by 7.5 thousand over the previous 15 months. Many blame it on long working hours and low wages.
The State Duma Committee on Regional Policy and Local Self-Government in its report on the budget for 2024 states that the poorer regions of Russia will have problems financing the salaries of doctors.
The heavy resource and financial burden of supporting Russia's war in Ukraine has a negative impact on a number of civilian sectors that serve the Russian population. There are no signs that the downward trend in the number of medical workers in Russia will change during 2024, the intelligence adds.
Russians in the occupied territories forbid medics to use social networks
Russian special services are afraid of leaking information on TOT about the current state of affairs, so they are introducing a number of new restrictions.
Civilian staff of hospitals were given an order prohibiting the use of such services: YouTube, Facebook, Instagram and VPN.
For violation of such restrictions, the direct manager is threatened with dismissal and prosecution.
Another reason for such a ban is to isolate the personnel as much as possible from the information space independent of the occupiers. The occupation administrations see a significant threat to their existence in the absence of total control over the sources from which the population in the given territory receives information.
