From our pocket
How Russia buys the most expensive medical equipment in the world
Russia buys medical equipment at inflated prices, as secret intermediaries are involved in transactions with some large Western firms. This is the conclusion made by Reuters in its recent study.
An analysis of 20,000 transactions over 7.5 years (from January 2006 to July 2013) showed that international companies sold more than $2.8 billion worth of medical equipment to Russia through almost 150 intermediary companies and organizations whose owners cannot be traced. As a result, Russian hospitals often paid two or three times more for equipment than Western clinics.
Moscow itself has recognized the problem. In 2010, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev ordered to find out why state hospitals were overpaying for equipment. After that, some manufacturers, including General Electric Co and Toshiba Corp, stopped cooperating with Russia through secret intermediaries. But Reuters found that other major international firms, including Philips and Siemens, continued to use the same scheme. From January 2011 to July 2013, Philips and Siemens together sold $120 million worth of equipment through secret intermediaries. And in general, for 2.5 years, sales of medical equipment under this scheme amounted to more than $ 600 million – this is 18% of all purchases of medical equipment in Russia.
When asked why intermediaries are used in the purchase of equipment, Alexey Levchenko, the representative of Deputy Prime Minister Olga Golodets on health issues, said: "The state is interested in buying the best product at the most favorable price... It doesn't matter who the seller is - the importer's subsidiary, distributor or any other company." He added that if there is evidence that the hospital is overpaying, the situation should be investigated by the FAS and law enforcement agencies.
According to Reuters, in May 2011, the Center for Cardiovascular Surgery in Astrakhan bought a Philips iE33 ultrasound scanner, which is used to diagnose heart diseases. At the rate in effect at that time, the hospital paid $580 thousand for the device. In December of the same year, the Almazov Center in St. Petersburg bought the same scanner model for $ 490 thousand. At that time, hospitals in Europe and North America were paying about $145 thousand for iE33. In another case, the Endocrinology Research Center in Moscow bought a Philips iU22 scanner for detecting breast cancer and other oncological diseases for $360,000 - about three times more expensive than hospitals in the USA and Europe.
Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru26.12.2014