Governor of St. Petersburg Alexander Beglov instructed to eliminate the queue for operations to replace the lens for cataracts for residents of besieged Leningrad, disabled people, veterans, participants in the Great Patriotic War, former minor prisoners of concentration camps and other preferential categories of citizens. As RosBalt was informed by the press service of Smolny, the order was given at a meeting of the city government when discussing preparations for the 81st anniversary of the breaking of the siege of Leningrad and the 80th anniversary of the complete liberation of Leningrad from the fascist blockade.
“The need for cataract operations in 2022–2023 in St. Petersburg increased by a third due to restrictions during the pandemic. Now about 2,000 city residents over 80 years old – veterans, blockade survivors – need it. This is a very popular type of help. Each blockade survivor should be given special attention. Surgical treatment of cataracts can be a wonderful gift for them, which will significantly improve their quality of life,” emphasized Alexander Beglov.
He instructed the health care committee to work on the issue of reducing waiting times for this category of citizens with subordinate institutions, and also to coordinate with the federal structure – MNTK Eye Microsurgery named after. Academician S.P. Fedorov” of the Russian Ministry of Health – increasing the volume of surgical treatment of cataracts for residents of St. Petersburg.
“Our duty is to completely eliminate this queue so that people don’t have to wait. For us, veterans and siege survivors come first. Vision is the most important thing. I will speak again with the Minister of Health on this issue. I think we will find an understanding. We will eliminate this queue as quickly as possible,” the governor promised.
He also demanded that the relevant structures provide him with a schedule of planned measures and report weekly on how the work is progressing.
Treatment of cataracts in St. Petersburg is carried out under the compulsory medical insurance policy in inpatient conditions and on a planned basis. In 2023, 16,760 operations were planned. However, as of December 1, 16,817 operations have already been performed using compulsory health insurance funds, which is 6.2% more than in 2022.
As the chief physician of City Multidisciplinary Hospital No. 2, Vladimir Volchkov, told the St. Petersburg Diary, during the pandemic, the medical institution he headed was repurposed as an infectious diseases hospital 4 times. “We were in the infectious profile for more than 400 days. During this time, a queue formed and more than 9.3 thousand cataract operations were postponed. In the intervals between re-profiling of our hospital, we tried to catch up with the planned task. It is difficult to reimburse such a number of operations in a short time; it takes time. We will fully fulfill the assigned tasks,” said Vladimir Volchkov.
He also emphasized that eliminating clouding of the lens of the eye is a very important task, otherwise a person may go blind. In this case, operations are performed only in the absence of contraindications. “Older people, including blockade survivors, have concomitant pathologies, including cardiovascular, neurological, and pulmonary. In this case, we eliminate the problem due to concomitant pathology, and only after that we operate,” explained Vladimir Volchkov.
Source: Rosbalt
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