A roundtable was held in the Russian State Duma in
Moscow on the results of the first year of the federal project ‘Fighting
Cancer’. The event was organized by the Roscongress Foundation, the State
Duma’s Health Protection Committee, and the Federation Council’s Social Policy
Committee with the support of the Content Foundation for Expert and Analytical
Activities. Representatives of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation,
the Ministry of Health, the Federal Compulsory Medical Insurance Fund, public
organizations, leading industry experts as well as the executive authorities
from more than 25 regions took part in the discussion.
Meeting participants discussed cancer programme
interim results and identified priorities for the coming year that include the
organization of a network of outpatient cancer care centres, the creation of
reference centres, an upgrade to the network of regional and federal oncology
centres, and the introduction of clinical guidelines and treatment protocols
for cancer patients.
Chairman of the State Duma Committee on Healthcare
Dmitry Morozov (United Russia) emphasized that only a joint effort would be
able to fulfil the tasks. «There are two degrees of acceptance for any goods — acceptance on the part of specialists and acceptance
by regular people. Our ‘technical control department’ is people. For the right
measures, we must rely firstly on social diagnostics and secondly on our
medical community», he said.
The round table was moderated by Chairman of the
Subcommittee on Medicines Circulation, Pharmaceutical and Medical Industry
Development Alexander Petrov (United Russia). «The Ministry of Health is doing
monumental work to implement the Federal project. It won’t be possible to fully
assess the results for decades, as has been the case with cancer programmes in
other countries. To achieve project goals, special attention should be paid to
the fight against the types of cancer contributing most to the loss of life
expectancy in the Russian Federation by developing additions to federal and
regional projects», Petrov said.
Deputy Minister of Healthcare of the Russian
Federation Evgeny Kamkin noted in his speech that the Fighting Oncological
Diseases federal project was one of the most ambitious and resource-intensive
projects implemented under the Healthcare national project in terms of
objectives and scale. «The project aims to improve the quality of medical care
received by cancer patients and reduce mortality from malignant tumours. A
whole range of measures affecting the cancer service and the entire healthcare
system as a whole is being implemented. Every constituent entity of the Russian
Federation is involved in the project, and federal medical organizations will
join the programme in 2020», Kamkin said.
Head of the Healthy Life project and First Deputy
Director for Development of the Roscongress Foundation Anastasia Stolkova noted
that the fight against cancer was a priority at key healthcare discussion
platforms: «The Content Foundation for the Development of Expert and Analytical
Activity and the expert community have been conducting a series of events
dedicated to the implementation of the federal project to fight cancer since
May of this year. The resolution adopted at the end of today’s round table will
serve as the foundation for the final event of this cycle — a specialized
cancer session as part of the business programme of the Healthy Life Forum. The
Forum will take place on 12 February 2020 on the first day of the Russian
Investment Forum».
One of the issues or particular concern to the medical
and patient communities is the lack of measures in the federal project
‘Fighting Cancer’ to reduce mortality from malignant tumours of lymphoid and
hematopoietic tissues. At the roundtable, we looked at the issue of drafting
supplements for the federal project ‘Fighting Cancer’ in order to introduce
additional targets in the creation, implementation, and evaluation of the
effectiveness of the project taking into account the differences in morbidity
and mortality from various types of cancer as well as further steps to improve
the system used to ensure medical care for priority diseases and provide
patients who have malignant tumours of lymphoid and hematopoietic tissues with
full access to modern treatment methods.
