Medical assistance is asked to make the basis for the issuance of an electronic visa to foreigners
The National Association of Health Managers asked the State Duma chairman Vyacheslav Volodin to include treatment in the list of grounds for extending an electronic visa to foreigners. The association believes that the country, developing medical tourism, can receive « reputation dividends. » The Association of Medical Tourism and Export of Medical Services consider the proposal to be redundant and remind you that visits to Russia for medical purposes are formally attributed to business trips.
The government in April introduced a bill to the State Duma, which allows you to increase the validity of a single electronic visa to 120 days. Amendments to Art. 25.16–1 of the law on the procedure for leaving Russia and entering the country prepared by the Foreign Ministry. The explanatory note says that the implementation of the provisions of the bill will help to increase the number of foreign citizens entering our country with tourist, business, humanitarian and guest purposes.
In the National Association of Management Managers (NAUZ; combines more than 500 clinics and their leaders from all over the country), noticed that among the grounds for the entry indicated in the explanatory note, there is no “receipt of treatment”.
The chairman of the Association Muslim Muslimov sent a letter to the State Duma speaker Vyacheslav Volodin with a request to « consider the possibility of amending the bill. » “The domestic healthcare system and Russian doctors are highly popular and authority around the world,” the letter says. “This is evidenced by a large stream of foreign citizens who go to our country for treatment. Medical tourism gradually occupies an increasing place in the general tourist stream to our country, which, among other things, favorably affects the image of the Russian Federation in the international arena. ”
According to the official data of the Ministry of Health of the Russian Federation, since the start of the Federal Project “Development of Export of Medical Services”, that is, since 2019, about 20 million foreign citizens received medical care in Russia. The most popular areas for the provision of medical care were preventive complex examinations, obstetrics and gynecology, including reproductive technologies, dentistry, ophthalmology, traumatology and orthopedics. In federal centers, oncology, ophthalmology, traumatology and orthopedics, neurosurgery and endocrinology are the greatest demand among foreigners. In June 2024, the Minister of Health of Russia Mikhail Murashko said that the interest of foreign citizens in medical tourism in the country was growing. This sector, he said, attracts more than $ 1 billion per year.
Most often, citizens of the former Soviet republics – Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Azerbaijan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Ukraine, Armenia, Moldova, Belarus and Latvia go to Russia.
The chairman of the NAUZ International Relations Committee Irina Saleeva adds that patients also arrive from Southeast Asia, North Africa and the Middle East, but their number in the total mass is not so great due to the existing language barrier. “Do not forget about security issues: under the pretext of obtaining medical services to the country, undesirable elements with radical ideology should not get into the country,” says Irina Saleeva. “Law enforcement agencies are closely monitored, which is eloquently evidenced by the statistics of refusal to the citizens of Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and other countries of Asia and the Middle East.” The expert notes that the country, developing medical tourism, can get not only profit, but also “reputation dividends”: “This allows foreign citizens to impress not only about the country as a whole, but also about the quality of the health system.”
Medical tourism brings much more cash receipts than the traditional “mass”, which was noted at the 23rd General Assembly of the World Tourist Organization at the UN in St. Petersburg, the President of the Association of Medical Tourism and Export of Medical Services Yevgeny Chernyshev points out. The current term of stay in Russia on an electronic visa is “very limited” for obtaining high -tech medical care. “We welcome the bill proposed by the government in terms of increasing the validity of a single electronic visa,” says Mr. Chernyshev. “At the same time, we do not see the need to include treatment as an additional basis for entry.” He draws attention to the fact that, according to Art. 25 of the current law “On the procedure for departure and entry” and clause 4 of section 4 of the order of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs “On approval of the list of trips used in the registration and issuance of visas to foreign citizens”, treatment refers to business trips.
