Feedback from participants and visitors to Russian Health Care Week
Badma Bashankaev, Chair of the State Duma Committee on Health Protection
“For the first time, such a large team from the State Duma, from the Health Protection Committee, including Russia’s chief surgeon and cardiologist, went round the entire exhibition and were delighted. Now, even with 18,000 sanctions imposed on the country, we can be sure that with such manufacturers, not indifferent, honest and sincere patriots of this country, we will succeed.
“We see import substitution happening, we understand the ways that we as legislators need to work out to help these people who make our health care safe, stable and focused on public health.
“Come, here is a festival of thought: Russian, scientific and technical thought. We will win, the victory will be ours!”
Leonid Ogul, First Deputy Chair of the State Duma Committee on Health Protection
“This Russian Health Care Week has a lot to show. As evidence of this is the session, which confirmed that our health care is not aimed at survival, but precisely at development. Today we’ve seen start-ups that we simply have to pay attention to: they are the future of medicine. Thanks to such platforms and technologies, we are moving forward.
“We must simply pay attention to those start-ups and proposals that have been addressed to us, to the Ministry of Health Care. We must pick them up and, together with the Russian government, bring them to fruition, so that this comes to every region of our country and helps our citizens in treating certain diseases.”
Tatyana Solomatina, Deputy Chair of the State Duma Committee on Health Protection
“Great exhibition. I feel confident in Russian health care and in the medical equipment on display. However, there are a number of issues that we need to address at the state level today. This is the accelerated registration of medical devices, which have already been developed today. For this, we as legislators need to take a few steps.
“There are also issues of supplying government orders, because any enterprise that produces new equipment needs government support. I am honored to see how many new developments have been made. I have seen developments from my region and from neighbouring regions. Today we are at the same stage we were at with medicines. Eight years ago, we started to deal with the safety of drug supply, and I think that the path we have travelled in this area can be accelerated today for medical equipment. To implement all those legislative acts that will help our manufacturers and medical institutions and enterprises to be safe and independent from foreign manufacturers.”
Vladimir Kononov, Deputy Chair of the State Duma Committee on Science and Higher Education, Chairman of the NTI Expo Organising Committee
“Today, another Russian Health Care Week has opened, a large international scientific and practical forum, which is traditionally held at EXPOCENTRE Fairgrounds. This is a unique venue and a unique event: many conferences, large state-of-the-art exhibitions, and unique technologies of modern medicine are presented here.
“Today one of the events of Russian Health Care Week was held, a strategic session on Modern Medicine: Priorities, Personnel, Laws attended by rectors of medical universities in Russia, representatives of the Ministry of Health Care, the Ministry of Science and Higher Education, three deputies of the State Duma from different committees, as well as representatives of practical medical business, Skolkovo Foundation and venture funds. The conversation among a circle of competent and knowledgeable people is aimed at working out further mechanisms for developing digital medicine, training of medical personnel and, of course, ensuring that the right amendments to the law are adopted.”
Elena Aksenova, Director at Research Institute of Health Care and Medical Management of the Moscow City Department of Health Care
“Our wonderful exhibition, Russian Health Care Week, has opened today. This year, there is an enormous number of participants. There were respected guests at the opening, who noted that the exhibition has become qualitatively quite different: cutting-edge, technological, with a large number of participants.
“As part of the first day, a strategic session was held by the State Duma Committee on Science and Higher Education. We discussed issues related to the development of legislation in the field of science and technology, issues of personnel policy and, of course, issues of innovative development of certain technologies in universities and research organisations.
“The main issues we discussed were what should be done to ensure that the technologies that are developed in research and educational organisations reach the end user, how to create a closed cycle of development using the resources of the health care system, among others. I think we’ve had a good session today, as we always do.”
Anatoly Fesyun, Acting Director at the National Medical Research Centre for Rehabilitation and Balneology of the Russian Ministry of Health Care
“A very significant event took place today as part of Russian Health Care Week 2023 – the work of the specialised commission on health resort treatment, where the main results achieved in 2023 were reviewed. The professional community discussed issues related to the new Federal Law No. 469 (On Amendments to the Federal Law On Natural Therapeutic Resources, Therapeutic and Recreational Areas and Resorts). The professional community also identified the main areas of activity for the development of the health resort industry, an integral part of which is the connection with medical rehabilitation.
“It was important to see what we have done and what we have achieved during this time. Now on the portal of state services in the personal account of each citizen there is an opportunity to apply for a health resort card, record for a voucher for health resort treatment. The best employees in the industry were also awarded with diplomas of health resort organisations for their great contribution to secondary prevention.
“We have finally combined our health resort treatment with medical checkup, and now every citizen understands that having undergone a checkup, he or she will receive health resort treatment, i.e. recovery, and this is our most important goal.”
Ekaterina Dibrova, President of the Filatov Foundation, Academician of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences, member of the Expert Council on Health Care under the Federation Council Committee on Social Policy
“This year we created a very interesting programme: the Leaders of Innovations project. This project was made possible within the Young Medicine Russian Scientific School competition thanks to the support of the Presidential Grants Foundation. Together with the leading research centres of the country, we have created a very interesting research and educational programme. All events take place within Russian Health Care Week.
“This is a great merit of EXPOCENTRE, which for the third time has provided us with this wonderful platform for the Russian Scientific School. The platforms we visited during Russian Health Care Week allowed young people to learn how to create a finished product from their own project and to be representatives of the finished result.
“All this helps and contributes to the creation of a certain roadmap for a young scientist and, of course, our school plays a big role in this. I am convinced that this direction needs to be developed and young people need to be invested in, because they are the future of our medicine, the future of our science and our sovereignty in pharmacy and medical technologies.”
Marina Veldanova, Professor of Business Practice, Executive Coach
“Russian Health Care Week is a very iconic and important event for those working in the industry, but even more importantly, it has different formats: traditional exhibition formats are combined with a very interesting content format of thematic sessions and theme days.
“Today we’ve held a session in Marble Hall, organised by the Skolkovo Centre for Health Care Development, dedicated to such an important and comprehensive topic as the ecosystem approach to health care. We talked about very different things: patient-centred transformation of the industry, how pharmaceutical innovations help to solve health care problems, and the importance of developing, among other things, wellbeing or human well-being tools in order to keep healthy.
“Thus, a wide range of topics were covered: from ecosystem, patient-centredness, innovative technologies to human well-being and health, and I think that such thematic sessions are extremely important for participants in Russian Health Care Week to broaden their horizons, make new information and new decisions regarding their own health and the health of their patients.”
Julio Garmendia Peña, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Republic of Cuba to the Russian Federation
“Today, two important documents were signed between BioCubaFarma, a Cuban company that manufactures drugs for treatment of serious diseases, and a Russian company that is working closely with us to introduce new drugs developed in Cuba. These are unique drugs for treatment of various diseases, from cancer to Parkinson’s disease and others. This week we made another step forward and, of course, we are working closely in the field of health care, in the field of medicines. Because our countries have a mutual interest in this.
“This is another opportunity to meet at the level of experts and specialists. Every time a delegation of scientists from different centres that develop these medicines comes from our country, and I think that the exhibition site is the perfect place to sign documents that will allow us to continue to work effectively.”
Victoria Troneva, Deputy Chair of Health Committee of the Volgograd Oblast
“We are presenting a treatment project in Volgograd at EXPOCENTRE at the exhibition. We have attended it since 2019. This year it is a very large-scale event. We have our own stand here, we represent 20 state clinics. The stand is very busy. At our stand, specialists consult on different areas of the Volgograd region. We also have B2B negotiations with foreign medical tourism agencies.
“The Ministry of Health Care is organising a large National Congress today. The event is very big: a huge number of business contacts, a huge number of new acquaintances and a very rich, interesting and useful conference programme, for which special thanks go to the organisers.”
Tatyana Butskaya, Deputy of the State Duma of the Russian Federal Assembly, Chair of the Board at the Council of Mothers, Expert at the All-Russia People’s Front
“There are always high expectations for medical industry, and now especially so, because for us, as well as for the President, one of the main issues is the issue of demography, and, as I mentioned in my introduction, demography consists of fertility, mortality and immigration. So those two component elements, birth rate and death rate, raise issues that we need to address with health authorities. These are not only issues of training doctors, but also of building new centres and reconstructing old ones so that they are comfortable, accessible, have the latest equipment, have medicines, and so that we are truly independent and life expectancy and birth rates in Russia increase.”
Igor Ivanov, Director General at VNIIMT, Roszdravnadzor
“Today, the Russian Scientific and Research Institute for Medical Engineering within the Week presents a comprehensive service called One Window. This comprehensive service allowed us to provide single-touch assistance to those manufacturers who are currently launching their products on the Russian market. Through the implementation of this comprehensive service, we have been able to significantly reduce the time required to prepare trials of medical devices and their registration on the Russian market. Today, the average time for obtaining one registration certificate is 65 working days, which significantly reduces the timeframe and enables a manufacturer not to waste time, but to appear on the Russian market very quickly.
“The Forum is an excellent platform that brings together manufacturers, regulators, representatives of federal executive authorities, consumers, both professional consumers, such as health care organisations, and user-citizens of our country, and thus, through a dialogue, there is an opportunity to solve the existing problems faced by each of the parties.”
Kirill Zaputryaev, Development Director and Co-founder of MVS
“We brought a unique ‘smart operating theatre’ to this year’s exhibition. It is a platform for new advanced technologies and their access to our operating theatres. This development makes it possible to collect and document everything that happens in the operating theatre, provide video broadcasting anywhere in the world and, accordingly, be used in training. All the technologies used here were developed by our employees in St. Petersburg. This is both the hardware part and, what is now much talked about, the software part.
“As a rule, the Zdravookhraneniye exhibition is very effective, even during these three days we have a large number of so-called leads, a large number of new contacts, a great interest from both private doctors and the state.
“During Russian Health Care Week we fulfil our mission: to make the most convenient tools for doctors’ work, which will bring safety and quality improvements to our medicine.”
Vladislav Armstrong, Regional Director, SonoScape Medical Corp
“I am very happy to be here once again, because every year we participate in this event. This year has been particularly interesting because many Chinese companies are participating, but this is of course due to the warm relations between the leadership of China and Russia.
“The exhibition is very productive because there are many visitors, many participants from Russia, China and other countries. There were many exchanges of contacts, the exhibition was visited by many skilled professionals and representatives of many health care organisations, thanks to which a good result was achieved. See you at Russian Health Care Week in 2024.”
Boris Polyaev, M.D., Prof., Honoured Doctor of the Russian Federation, Academician of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences and the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences, Chief Specialist of the Russian Ministry of Health Care in Sports Medicine
“We are very pleased that for the 18th time our conference SportMed 2023 has opened at the EXPOCENTRE health care exhibition. It is a very interesting conference, very rich in content. The working group under the President of Russia on sports medicine has just finished. We have learnt many interesting things. There will be many large sporting events that require serious medical support.
“The future games to be held in Kazan, the World Friendship Games, are actually our alternative to the international Olympic Games. All this, of course, requires serious attitude on the part of medical professionals. We have also studied and analysed possible problems. I think it will all be beneficial.”
