The municipal forum “There is a result!” was held in Norilsk for the first time. with the participation of federal experts

From April 8 to 10, the first municipal forum “There is a result!” was held in Norilsk, in which federal, regional and city experts took part.

During work at 9 sites, city activists and experts discussed the results of the 5-year implementation of the People's Program and proposals for the formation of a new one for the near future.

On the final day of the forum, the event participants visited the Nadezhda Metallurgical Plant named after. B.I. Kolesnikov and talked with the company’s staff. A little later, a meeting was held with the pedagogical community of Kayerkan, where, during the implementation of the People's Program, a modern kindergarten was reconstructed and put into operation.

The final venue for the forum was the Norilsk Medical College, where experts met with the heads of the city’s healthcare institutions. Opening this discussion, the forum moderator, speaker of the Norilsk City Council Alexander Pestryakov explained to the audience that the main goal of the conversation was not so much a story about the results of the joint work of federal, regional and municipal authorities over the past 5 years, but rather a discussion of ways to solve systemic problems that have accumulated in the healthcare sector.

In this industry, both in Norilsk and throughout the country, there is a particularly acute shortage of qualified specialists, noted Andrey Grachev, executive director of the Coordination Council of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs in the Siberian Federal District. At the same time, despite a number of state support measures already launched, the situation has not yet been able to radically change for the better. Therefore, it is necessary to look for new solutions to “old” problems, Grachev is sure.

The head of the Human Resources Department of the Norilsk Administration, Vladislava Sevastyanova, spoke about the results of the municipality’s work in terms of improving the staffing of Norilsk medical institutions. In her report, she said that thanks to the municipal program to attract scarce specialists, which turns 15 this year, 215 doctors have been interested in working in the territory over the past 5 years. However, due to the natural outflow of specialists, the average staffing level for healthcare institutions in the city remains critically low – about 65%.

This serious problem in Norilsk has been jointly solved for many years by the heads of the municipality and the deputies of the Legislative Assembly of the region, elected from the northern territories, noted the chairman of the regional parliament, Alexey Dodatko: on their initiative, from the regional budget, doctors invited to Norilsk are paid a “lift” and reimbursed for rent. But this does not change the situation significantly. According to the speaker, now the main struggle for medical specialists begins almost from school, and therefore it is necessary to strengthen career guidance work.

This activity has been going on in the territory for several years, Irina Subocheva, a deputy of the Legislative Assembly of the region, noted in her report, saying that in Norilsk the only educational institution in the field of healthcare – the Norilsk Medical College – has changed significantly in recent years: “Thanks to the support of Norilsk Nickel, the Norilsk Development Agency and entrepreneurs, an interactive anatomical table and a new space for career guidance have appeared in the medical college. In addition, we managed to achieve funding in the amount of 72 million rubles from the regional budget for further modernization of the institution,” said Subocheva.

Another good help in solving personnel problems in the healthcare sector could be a new project of a non-profit organization, the essence of which is to temporarily attract doctors from regional medical institutions to work in Norilsk, says Chairman of the Norilsk City Council Alexander Pestryakov: “The project is currently at the final stage of development, it is planned to begin implementation on the basis of the Norilsk Interdistrict Children's Hospital. Financing is expected from various sources, including from the Our Norilsk Endowment Fund, which actively supports socially significant urban projects,” he explained.

Vice-Speaker of the Legislative Assembly of the region Dmitry Sviridov added that this project had already been previously discussed with the leadership of the regional Ministry of Health and received a positive assessment:

“The Minister of Health, having studied the project, made recommendations for its refinement, since it is necessary to spell out in detail all the nuances of formalizing the labor relations of health workers who will come to Norilsk on some kind of business trip. Now specialists are preparing all the necessary documents to present the final version of the project to receive financial support from the Our Norilsk Foundation. I hope that in the near future we will be able to pilot it at a children’s hospital and, after some time, evaluate the result,” Sviridov noted.

But attracting doctors to the territory is half the battle, according to the heads of healthcare institutions in Norilsk. It is much more difficult to “fix” them here. And a lot here comes down to the notorious housing issue. Doctors working in Norilsk complain that they cannot purchase housing on their own, the municipality allocates only service apartments, which by law are not subject to privatization, and the program for relocating Norilsk residents to the “mainland,” which operated under a four-party agreement, has been completed. This problem must be resolved at the legislative level, Andrei Grachev is convinced. New mechanisms for providing state support are needed in the difficult issue of providing housing for employees of the healthcare system of the Arctic territories.

“Any legislative initiative is serious work, a long and thorny path, which, of course, must be overcome by everyone together. But in parallel, it is necessary to think through new mechanisms. Now we are widely discussing with specialists from various relevant departments the possibility of introducing a mortgage lending system, where part of the loan will be paid from budget funds. Similar to the housing program for Norilsk Nickel employees. The issue is not easy, but through joint efforts everything can be resolved,” Andrey Grachev emphasized.

Another problematic area that was identified during the event by the heads of Norilsk healthcare institutions is the level of wages for doctors: it is almost equal to that on the mainland, which does not encourage specialists to come to work in Norilsk. Regional parliamentarians took up this issue.

At the end of the meeting, Alexander Pestryakov reminded the participants that the collection of proposals for the new People’s Program will not stop with the end of the forum: anyone can send their thoughts on the development of Norilsk in the medium term: “Proposals can be sent to me by email, through social networks and instant messengers. All of them will be accumulated and processed by specialized specialists,” Pestryakov concluded.