Wages of the health workers as a method of personnel management in the health care system

Wages of the health workers are an integral part of human resource management in the health care system, as well as a motivating factor ensuring the high-quality and affordable health care. Low wages reduce the prestige of the profession of health worker, which leads to a shortage of specialists, increase the charge of the staff, reduce the quality and availability of medical care. «May decrees» of the President of Russian Federation set the level of health care workers’ wages in 2018 at 200% of the average wage in the relevant region, and the state program «Health Care Development» sets the values of the indicators of the ratio of average wages of doctors, middle and junior medical personnel to the average wage in the region of the Russian Federation for 2013-2020 years. The Ministry of Health of the Russian Federation reports annually on the performance of these indicators on the basis of the information provided by the regional executive authorities in the field of health care. One of the goals of the measures, taken by Ministry of Health of the Russian Federation to optimize the network of medical organizations, is declared to raise the wages of medical workers at the expense of savings. However, according to the Accounting Chamber of the Russian Federation, the financial resources in the fund of wages, obtained due to the optimization, amounted to only 1.4%. The results of our sociological surveys of health workers significantly differed from the payroll report published by the Ministry of Health and the Russian Federal State Statistics Service. At the same time, respondents noted the increase in the charge on the medical personnel in the state (municipal) health care organizations.