A Unified Psychiatric Service to Be Created in Sverdlovsk Region
The Ministry of Health of Sverdlovsk Region has approved the creation of a unified psychiatric service. It is being formed on the basis of the Sverdlovsk Regional Clinical Psychiatric Hospital (Sverdlovsk RCPH).
Minister Tatyana Savinova stated at a meeting with heads of psychiatric hospitals: «I am very pleased that our regional psychiatric hospital is focusing on the best clinics in the country. This includes creating a memory clinic for elderly patients who need to maintain cognitive potential. We also discussed a mental health clinic for working middle-aged residents who have not so much illnesses but somatic complaints:
- insomnia,
- headaches,
- abdominal pain,
- shortness of breath.
As part of the reform, four specialized institutions will be merged into a single psychiatric hospital. The main goal is more rational use of shared resources. This will allow for more effective utilization of bed capacity, including addiction treatment beds, and create centralized management for proper patient routing, especially in Yekaterinburg.
Chief Doctor of Sverdlovsk RCPH Oleg Serdyuk noted: «The issue of merging the psychiatric service has been ripe for a long time, and we have been moving towards this since 2009. Now we are ready to merge into one large institution. This will allow us to provide equal quality care and ensure better accessibility for the region»s population. Our psychiatric service is quite cohesive and united.«
The ministry emphasized that the reorganization will not lead to a reduction in dispensary outpatient departments or inpatient facilities. Only the legal form of ownership will change. A similar model is already successfully operating in a number of Russian regions. Most municipal psychiatric departments in the region were merged with Sverdlovsk RCPH ten years ago.
