According to Rosstat, in the first half of 2026, 185.3 thousand people left healthcare organizations and social institutions. Of them, 4.3 thousand workers were laid off due to staff cuts, 161.3 thousand submitted resignations of their own accord, and 165.9 thousand people were hired.
The medical publication Medvestnik reported that its August survey showed that 38% of doctors had already discussed possible staff reductions within their teams. Another 14.8% of respondents said that management had already confirmed the cuts and that they involved 10–15%.
In St. Petersburg, city authorities planned to cut spending on hospitals: according to the St. Petersburg publication Fontanka, the chairman of the Health Committee, Andrey Sarana, warned chief physicians in June about a likely reduction in costs, and later his deputy, Yana Egorova, confirmed this need at a meeting with the financiers of budget institutions.
Cutbacks in healthcare are taking place against the backdrop of problems with regional budgets, from which the bulk of these expenses is financed: last year their combined deficit reached 1.5 trillion rubles. Sberbank had previously forecast that this year the deficit could rise to 2 trillion rubles.
In April, the chairman of the Federation Council Committee on Budget and Financial Markets, Anatoly Artamonov, instructed the regions to conduct an audit of spending and consider optimizing small hospitals and maternity wards. He also proposed mothballing construction projects or transferring part of the medical complex buildings to private investors.
According to the results of the first quarter, the consolidated budgets of Russia’s constituent entities allocated 6.4% less to clinics and hospitals than a year earlier. Excluding Moscow, whose annual budget is almost 5 trillion rubles, healthcare spending cuts in the regions amounted to 5.2% year on year.
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