“Have not received promised payments”: complaints from healthcare professionals.
After numerous complaints from Russian doctors that they were not receiving the promised payments for working with COVID-19 patients, the government had to amend the resolution regulating payments.
Doctors complained that they were receiving significantly less than they had been promised. Investigators and prosecutors in more than 20 regions responded to complaints from health care workers.
On April 8, Vladimir Putin promised substantial salary increases for April-June to all medical professionals working with coronavirus patients. Thus, it was stated that doctors working in hospitals will receive 80,000 rubles, paramedics and nurses – 50,000 rubles, and junior medical staff – 25,000 rubles. Doctors of emergency medical services working with COVID-19 patients were promised a payment of 50,000 rubles per month, and ambulance drivers – 25,000 rubles. More than 45 billion rubles were allocated from the National Welfare Fund for these payments.
In fact, the decree contained a provision stating that payments would be made “for actual time worked”. It turned out that this phrase was interpreted differently in each region.
According to the president’s promise, all payments to doctors should be received by May 15. But as the deadline approached, doctors began making mass appeals to the authorities, saying they still had not received their promised payments.
Many said that payments to doctors were being recalculated based on the number of hours or even minutes spent in the “red” zone. As a result, instead of receiving 25,000 to 80,000 rubles, doctors received amounts ranging from 700 to 17,000 rubles.
In response, Putin on Friday criticized the procedure for paying the bonuses. “I named specific amounts of these bonuses for doctors, for all medical personnel, ambulance crews for working with coronavirus patients, not for the time – five, ten minutes or two hours, but for the fact of work itself,” the president said at a meeting on the opening of Defense Ministry medical centers in the regions to help Covid-19 patients. He felt that officials were “spinning bureaucratic red tape” around him. “Should I count the hours? No. I hope that by the end of today, if it hasn’t already been done somewhere, everything will finally be done,” Putin added.
On the same day, the provision on “actual time worked” was removed from the decisions on payments. On May 17, the Ministry of Health clarified to the regions the methodology for calculating the funds, which implies full payment regardless of the number of shifts or hours.
On May 16, a video surfaced on social media showing about 30 medical workers standing in front of ambulances, saying in unison that their extra bonuses had not been paid.
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“Armavir Ambulance. We have not received the promised payments. Neither doctors, nor paramedics, nor nurses, nor drivers – nobody. Not a ruble, not a penny,” they said.
The prosecutor’s office of the Krasnodar region announced that they will conduct an investigation based on this video. The administration of the Krasnodar region responded to the inquiry by saying that the money allocated for medical personnel was delivered to the medical institutions of the region on time. They added that the management itself calculated the allowances and distributed them among the employees. The press service clarified that the salary for health workers will be paid on May 12. “If violations are confirmed, strict disciplinary measures will be taken against all responsible parties, including personnel,” the press service said. On the same day, the administration announced that the chief physician of the medical institution would be dismissed within 24 hours, as “violations have already begun to be confirmed”.
A video appeal to the President and Kuzbass Governor Sergei Tsivilev was also recorded by the staff of the Anzhero-Sudzhensk ambulance station. “According to the President’s appeal regarding payments to medical personnel and other workers for special working conditions and additional workload during the pandemic, payments were made only to those who carried out the evacuation of patients with confirmed Covid-19 diagnosis to the Regional Infectious Hospital. All others were left without payment,” the doctors said. They also complained of difficult working conditions and a lack of personal protective equipment. The doctors said they were “working in homemade masks and reusing disposable overalls.
In the Ministry of Health of the Kemerovo region, it was stated that the doctors who applied were not entitled to receive payments because they did not work directly with coronavirus-infected patients.
Junior nurses, attendants and technical workers of the hospital in Moscow’s Kommunarka complained about not being paid: on Tuesday, May 12, they addressed the president, and about 100 people signed the letter. “We have repeatedly approached our management on this issue, but they told us that they did not promise us any payments. Putin promised, so let him pay you. Therefore, we turn to you and ask you to investigate our management (and find out) where our money has gone,” the letter said. The letter was signed by nurses employed at the hospital through the company “Arni”. According to the authors of the letter, only doctors and nurses directly employed by the hospital received money.
On May 8, the Chelyabinsk regional prosecutor’s office launched an investigation on the basis of a collective statement by ambulance drivers. They claimed that their employer was not paying them the full amount of allowances due to them. The statement was signed by 149 drivers, and their interests are represented by the lawyer of the “Right to Postcards” organization, Alexey Priynishnikov. According to him, none of them has received the due payments. “Right to Postcards” has submitted a statement to the Investigative Committee asking for an investigation. According to human rights activists, in April someone received from two to four thousand rubles, someone received 15 thousand or 17 thousand, although everyone was supposed to receive 25 thousand. On Monday, May 18, “Open Rights” reported that after submitting a statement to the Investigative Committee, paramedics began to receive bonuses, but they have not yet been received by everyone.
An investigation has been launched in the Murmansk region after an anonymous message with an ambulance driver’s pay slip appeared on “VKontakte” (a Russian social media platform). The author of the post claimed that he was paid just over 200 rubles extra for working with coronavirus patients for a month. He added that in April his salary was 5,000 rubles less than in March.
In Irkutsk, investigators have begun examining a video posted on “VKontakte” in which health workers claim that they have not received the promised payments since Saturday, May 16.
An inspection of the Prosecutor’s Office and investigators in the Belgorod region has begun after a video surfaced on social media in which emergency medical workers in the city of Alekseyevka complained that “some were paid, some were not” the additional allowances they were entitled to. Similar complaints about the recalculation of pay for hours worked have been made in many other regions.
According to the regional government, doctors’ payments will be recalculated according to new criteria. The number of offers also claimed to recalculate payments in the Zabaykalsky Krai, Kabardino-Balkaria, Novosibirsk, Lipetsk, Samara regions, and others. In the Samara Region it was decided to credit regional payments even to those who did not encounter coronavirus patients, and in the Ulyanovsk Region regional payments were promised not only to employees of state medical institutions, but also to doctors of private clinics.
After the scandal with payments to health workers, a section was created on the Government Services website to complain about non-payment of allowances due. On May 15, an amended resolution on payments to healthcare workers was published, excluding the provision on “actual working time”. In the Ministry of Health they promised to pay all the allowances due to the health workers from April 12. It was specified that the bonuses are due to employees of hospitals, specialized mobile emergency teams, drivers, including those involved in outsourcing work.