# What quality of health care can you get in Russia if you have money

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-quality-of-health-care-can-you-get-in-russia-if-you-have-money/1012408>\
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion\
**Created:** [December 31, 2024, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-quality-of-health-care-can-you-get-in-russia-if-you-have-money/1012408 "2024-12-31T19:31:29Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\
**Post date:** [December 31, 2024, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-quality-of-health-care-can-you-get-in-russia-if-you-have-money/1012408/1 "2024-12-31T19:31:29Z")

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So I read that Assad’s wife wanted to go to the UK for leukemia treatment but was denied by the UK government.

> **[Bashar al-Assad's wife Asma 'barred from UK' for cancer treatment](https://www.yahoo.com/news/bashar-al-assads-wife-asma-152823887.html)**
>
> London-born first lady has 50-50 chance of survival, according to reports

The Assads stole billions of dollars when they went to Russia. I would’ve assumed in cities like Moscow or St Petersburg that as long as you had money, you could get world class health care. So why would you need to go to the UK for leukemia therapy? Unless it was just a cover to get a divorce and move to the UK.

Does anyone know what kind of health care you can get in Russia? Are there different tiers of health care based on income? I mean I assume there are but I don’t know what they are or what they offer.

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**Author:** ![thelurkinghorror](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7c8e57/32.png) [@thelurkinghorror](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thelurkinghorror)\
**Post date:** [December 31, 2024, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-quality-of-health-care-can-you-get-in-russia-if-you-have-money/1012408/2 "2024-12-31T20:02:43Z")

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UK isn’t under sanctions that might limit what novel technologies or medications she might need.

She is a UK citizen, to be clear, she was raised in London. So it’s not so much “Russia is bad” or “UK is the best” as it’s the better of the two most-available options. Russia is probably leaps above the other countries they could have fled to.

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**Author:** ![scudsucker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scudsucker/32/14101_2.png) [@scudsucker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scudsucker)\
**Post date:** [January 1, 2025, 9:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-quality-of-health-care-can-you-get-in-russia-if-you-have-money/1012408/3 "2025-01-01T09:23:25Z")

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There is a healthy (snicker) tradition of Zimbabwe’s senior politicians, particularly Mugabe, travelling to Russia for health treatment, but I assume they got VIP treatment.

Which is a bit strange, as South Africa has excellent health care in the private sector, and is very close.

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**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\
**Post date:** [January 1, 2025, 9:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-quality-of-health-care-can-you-get-in-russia-if-you-have-money/1012408/4 "2025-01-01T09:48:19Z")

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Google says the Russian Children’s Hospital in Moscow is ranked 250th in the world and also says there are about 165,000 hospitals in the world, so that’s a pretty high ranked one.

The Bakoulev Center for Cardiovascular Surgery, also Russian, is ranked 291st.