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Taking part in the event were Deputy Prime Minister Tatyana Golikova, Healthcare Minister Mikhail Murashko, heads of several regions and managers of new medical centres.

The newly opened medical centres include oncology centres in Ulan-Ude and Volgograd, infectious desease hospitals in Belgorod and Orenburg, a medical rehabilitation facility at the Federal Centre for Traumatology, Orthopaedy and Endoprosthetics in Cheboksary, an outpatient clinic in Novosibirsk, two outpatient clinics in St Petersburg reopened after major renovations, as well as eleven first-aid stations in the Sverdlovsk and Chelyabinsk regions.

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President of Russia Vladimir Putin: Good afternoon, friends.

I am happy to greet you all. Just these days, including today, 19 medical centres are opening in various regions across Russia. These are hospitals specialising in infectious diseases, oncology centres, outpatient clinics and first-aid stations.

I sincerely wish success to your staff and greet you, all your colleagues, the staff of federal and regional health centres, district and city hospitals, outpatient clinics, emergency medicine crews, ambulance crews, air medical service, and military medics on the upcoming Medical Worker Day.

I want to express my heartfelt gratitude to the entire medical community of Russia for your courageous selfless work, for loyalty to the best traditions of numerous generations of our doctors, paramedics and nurses, for following your mission with tremendous dignity, because the professionalism of a true doctor and medical professional is inseparable from your spiritual generosity.

We know how much courage, patience, compassion and self-sacrifice you demonstrated during the critical periods of the coronavirus pandemic. The medical workers of Russia display these very qualities while helping residents of the Donetsk and Lugansk people’s republics and civilians in the liberated territories.

I would like to specially address military doctors, medical assistants and junior medical staff at the hospitals of the Defence Ministry, the Federal Guards and other security agencies, to those who are rendering medical aid on the frontline under shelling, often risking their lives.

We bow to you for saving the lives of our comrades-in-arms who are engaged in the special military operation.

Friends,

An efficient, modern healthcare system is of crucial importance for the preservation of the Russian nation; therefore, we continue increasing the capacities of medical centres, support our scientists who run research and practice centres, and the industry in creating advanced diagnostics and treatment technology and cutting-edge medical equipment.

Our mission is to improve the accessibility and quality of medical aid so that all people in our vast country can see improvements and positive trends in this area. It especially concerns the residents of small towns and communities, the elderly and families with children. Our absolute priority here is to upgrade primary care.

I am well aware that the staff of outpatient clinics and first-aid stations have huge workloads as well as great responsibility because you are closest to the people: you are the first they come to, because the diagnosis and subsequent treatment depend on you.

The importance of your work is impossible to overestimate. We will definitely continue increasing support for primary care specialists and all those employed in the Russian healthcare system.

Despite the current challenges, we are fully implementing plans for the construction, modernisation and re-equipment of hospitals, outpatient clinics and first-aid stations, and we will ensure the procurement of ambulance vehicles and mobile ambulance stations so that a doctor, a medical assistant or a nurse can work in up-to-date conditions and render people all the help they need.

Construction and installing equipment in those new medical centres with whose staff we are now in contact is part of those big, large-scale efforts. Tens of thousands of people will receive medical aid there. I will note that capabilities for rendering specialised and high-tech help will increase significantly.

Friends,

I congratulate again all the medical workers of our vast country on the coming holiday, all those who chose this noble and compassionate profession.

I wish you good health, success and all the very best.

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Vladimir Putin: The development of the healthcare system is obviously one of the key and fundamental areas of our work at all levels, starting from municipalities to the federal level. This includes both high-tech federal centres and first-aid stations. We saw the opening of such facilities today.

We have been persistently increasing funding for these purposes in the past years, and the funding will keep increasing in the coming years. Everything matters here: the personnel, equipment and modern technology. Concerning equipment, we should certainly pay more attention to the capabilities of the Russian industry.

We should give credit to the military-industrial complex system. They are facing the issue of production conversion, a transition to civilian equipment manufacturing, and of the areas in which they succeeded the most is precisely the production of medical equipment.

There are many other areas, many of them. The healthcare system in itself is a huge sector that is crucial for the country, as I have said. We will keep working for the benefit of our citizens to provide a high level of medical aid.

It is important both for health preservation and for the nation’s future, population growth and rising life expectancy, that is, for future generations, for the children. Everything in this area has major importance, every aspect.

I once again congratulate you on the holiday and wish you success.

Thank you very much.