Reuters/AFP/Moscow

More than a thousand Russians marched through central Moscow yesterday to protest against reforms to the healthcare system and to demand better wages and working conditions for doctors.
Russian media says more than 7,000 doctors might lose their job as part of the reform, with some 28 hospitals and clinics set to close in Moscow alone in the next few months.
Officials say the re-organisation is aimed at increasing efficiency.
The protesters, many of them doctors and health workers, chanted slogans and carried banners, including one that read: “Doctors and patients, unite!”
A Reuters cameraman estimated that as many as 3,000 people took part in the rare public protest, which was sanctioned by Russian authorities.
Moscow police told Russian news agencies that around 1,500 protesters had attended the march.
Similar protests against the reforms took place in Saint Petersburg, Vladivostok and other Russian cities over the weekend, Russian news agencies reported.
Some of the protesters, dressed as the Grim Reaper and carrying scythes, held a rally after the march.
With long queues, rampant corruption and low survival rates, Russia’s public health service is in desperate need of modernisation. But medics are up in arms at reforms that they say are about saving money, not improving care.
One protester carried a placard with a picture of President Vladimir Putin and the slogan: “When will your dirty tricks end?”
Other protesters pushed a wooden cart with a model coffin decorated with the slogan: “There weren’t enough beds for me.”
The Moscow rally, the second such protest by medics in the capital this month, was backed by two opposition parties in Russia’s parliament, the Communist Party and A Just Russia party.
“The plan of reforming Moscow’s health system in 2014 and 2015 calls for the closure by the end of this year of 26 out of the city’s 65 hospitals, including three maternity hospitals,” the Communist Party said in a statement, calling its members to turn out.
“The jobs of 7,000 medics will be cut” in Moscow, the Communists added.
The reforms were leaked to media in October, prompting a massive public reaction.
It is highly unusual for state employees to take part in protests against the city authorities and Putin.
The health ministry and Moscow’s city government said that the reforms will improve healthcare by concentrating multiple specialists in more effective hospitals.
Sensing public discontent, Putin said this month he was aware of the “problem”.
“I think it’s true our colleagues did not think everything through here ... we’ve already talked to the Moscow authorities about this and it goes without saying we won’t leave it at that,” Putin said.
Currently, medics earn far less than their European counterparts – around 45,000 rubles ($969) a month for a doctor.
Putin in 2012, on his return to the Kremlin for a third term, promised that doctors would have their pay doubled by 2018.