It is not a conspiracy, but no less terrifying: why do Russian doctors really fall out of the windows?

This week there is some really serious news in Russia: Although President Vladimir Putin has announced that quarantine measures are already being alleviated, the coronavirus crisis is far from rolling back, with more than 10,000 people reported every day. new confirmed infections

According to this indicator, Russia lags behind the United States only in the world, surpassing both Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom, which have been horrified by the world with terrible hospital views. There are already 232,000 confirmed infections in Russia and 2,116 deaths of infected people.

However, last week, news emerged that overshadowed even the frustrating daily flow of news about a struggling pandemic, with doctors falling from high windows.

Makes scapegoats scapegoats

Up to three of these doctors appeared from April 24 to May 2. Two have died and have already been buried, the third, whose skull is broken, continues to fight for his life in the hospital.

In addition to this sad trend, all these doctors have criticized the work of the Russian institutions in the fight against the coronavirus.

And while there is evidence of serious conflict with the workplace, some media outlets have tried to take advantage of these tragedies and assume that Russian doctors are almost always accompanied by Kremlin strikers who punish criticism of the government.

However, such theories seem to have helped divert attention from the more realistic causes of these tragedies, even though they are just as dire.

Journalists at The Independent interacted with many of the victims’ friends and colleagues and discovered that Russian doctors, not just the three who fell out the window, were working in difficult-to-lift conditions.

The victims, Natalia Lebedev, director of the Zviozdn Hospital Ambulance Center, Jelena Nepomniascha, Chief Physician of the Krasnoyarsk Veterans Hospital, and Alexander Shulepov, a doctor in the Voronezh region, were pressured from all sides.

The press, of course, feels that it does not have enough safeguards to fight an invisible killer: the COVID-19 infection. But there was also pressure from the hospital administration, for fear of losing status and privileges.

Russia, of course, is not the only country where doctors are falling apart and deciding to withdraw from life in the face of a powerful pandemic. Suicides of doctors, nurses, and ambulance workers have been reported in the United States and in many European countries.

In Russia, along with a feeling of guilt, the cocktail is hit with constant smoking and the search for scapegoats.

Some were incessantly frightened because they had contracted the virus themselves, and that was explained in the farewell notes. Others feared that they would infect others, the feeling that they would be responsible for someone’s death.

But in Russia, the situation is exceptional, because here, along with a feeling of guilt, a cocktail and the constant search for scapegoats are beaten into a cocktail.

Three sad incidents

The search for the culprits seems to be the obvious explanation for the first death on April 24. Lebedeva, an experienced head of the Zviozdn Hospital ambulance center, fell out of a fifth-floor window at a Moscow hospital. A 48-year-old woman was treated for COVID-19 at the hospital.

According to one of his colleagues, N. Lebedeva received the attention of important patients with COVID-19 at a closed astronaut training center in Zviozdne.

Unfortunately, the woman became infected and became part of the chain of infections: in total, nearly two dozen people needed medical services. And N. Lebedeva’s colleague confirmed that hospital management accused her of failing to control the spread of the virus. Unfortunately, N. Lebedeva began to blame herself.

A day later, the second doctor, J. Nepomniashchaya, 47, who worked in Krasnoyarsk, fell through the window on the fifth floor. A week later, the woman died in the hospital.

A source from The Independent at Krasnoyarsk Hospital claimed that Elena was an employee who was loved by her subordinates. However, the local government’s plans to use the COVID-19 hospital for admission and patient care to meet quotas set by President Putin were troubling.

Jelena was overwhelmed by threats and demands that were impossible to implement. We all fear that this death will be ruled out as the suicide of a fallen woman.

According to J.Nomomniaščaja, the hospital was not prepared for the transformation: there was a lack of protective equipment for doctors, there was only a lung ventilator. Until the last day, the doctor pressured management to take the necessary measures.

Local media wrote that J. Nepomniaščaja fell out of the window shortly after a conference call with Boris Nemik, Minister of Health for the Krasnoyarsk Territory. The bureaucrat denies that there was a conversation, but a source in The Independent believes otherwise.

“Jelena was not in an unstable condition, there was no obvious risk of suicide. However, she was overwhelmed by threats and demands that were impossible to implement. We all fear that this death would be dismissed as the suicide of a fallen woman,” the indignation indignant. source.

The third case is more enigmatic. A. Šulepov fell from the Voronezh region through the first-floor window of the hospital where he was treated by COVID-19. Survived.

Again, there are signs of conflict with the administration. 10 days before the incident, the same day he was hospitalized, Shulepov and his colleague Alexander Kosiakin posted a video: They complained that even after the infection was detected, Shulepov was told to work with his colleagues.

Kosiakin was soon summoned by the police and ordered not to spread “false news” about COVID-19. And three days later, A. Shulepov denied his statement: He said the video was shot when he was overwhelmed with emotions after learning of the COVID-19 diagnosis.

It is impossible to determine what happened in A. Šulepovas’s mind or in the hospital ward. However, crime is not easy to see: criminals who assess efficiency barely throw their victim out the ground floor window.

Threatened by a perfect storm?

Dmitry Beliakov, head of the independent Russian ambulance workers union and a paramedic himself, has no doubt that in all three cases we should be talking about suicide and an attempt to get out of life.

However, D. Beliakov does not want to talk about coincidences: it is the fault of hospital managers who are struggling with the coronavirus crisis in the country and want to please an even higher administration. They don’t seem to care about the everyday lives of ordinary doctors.

“Managers don’t know what to do, so blame mid-level employees for the situation. The latter are already exhausted by the pandemic and are now dancing out the windows,” said the union chief.

According to D. Beliakov, many union members approached him with stories of unrealistic demands and work without guarantees. People find it difficult to negotiate working conditions because many doctors are not local in Moscow, so they have to think about debts, loan payments and rents.

“No one has declared a state of emergency here, no one has frozen payments to banks,” added Beliakov.

Other doctors say the pandemic has exposed an old problem, according to Alexei Erlich, head of the intensive care unit at the 29th Moscow hospital, the deaths of doctors are now tragic because the public has finally caught their attention.

“The system does not work in such a way that people can work normally and honestly. This is how these incidents occur, ”says A. Erlich.

Beliakov: “No one has declared a state of emergency here, no one has frozen payments to banks.”

In the absence of official statistics, he, along with several other doctors, is compiling a commemorative list of colleagues who fell in the fight against COVID-19. It currently houses 113 dead doctors, including four doctors from neighboring Belarus.

“In the coming weeks and months, more doctors will raise their hands in front of them, this is inevitable. Moscow: one. When the virus reaches the regions, it will be even worse.

There, on the one hand, protective clothing and equipment are missing. But there, physicians also lack knowledge, and their managers lack organizational skills. Let’s add the usual secret in the province and get all the ingredients for a perfect storm, “said A. Erlich.