Doctors, patients and other protesters braved the freezing cold to voice their opposition to an ongoing Moscow health care reform that could remove up to 10,000 doctors from their jobs and close 28 hospitals and clinics by early next year.
The pressure on the country’s budget has intensified as the economy is taking a hit from low oil prices, a drop in the value of the national currency and from Western sanctions over Russia’s role in the deadly conflict in eastern Ukraine.
Authorities defend the reform as a much-needed step to modernize a decrepit Soviet-era health care system and close down hospitals …read more
Source: San Francisco Chronicle
