[THE WAGES IN THE PUBLIC HEALTHCARE: THE PANDEMIC CHALLENGES]

The article analyzes the current practice of remuneration in the Russian budget health care. According to the analysis concluded that at the present stage, the main problems in this area are the high level of differentiation of wages in the context of constituent entities of the Russian Federation, and between different categories of health workers; staff shortages, as well as the opacity of approaches to pay. In addition, it was found that the COVID-19 pandemic not only significantly aggravated the above-mentioned «bottlenecks» of the domestic budget health care, but also created new problems, the most significant of which was the procedure for compensation payments to employees involved in working with COVID-19 patients. Recommendations are formulated to change the current situation, including the need to: review the regulatory approaches to regulating compensation payments to medical workers; formation of lists of professional qualification groups and mandatory types of compensation and incentive payments; determination of the mandatory ratio of the remuneration of the heads of health care institutions to the average salary of the main staff.