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Last Thursday, the number of infected people in Russia exceeded 100,000, that is. and there are already more of them than in China and Iran. Of the 285 outbreaks of coronavirus in the country, 64 percent. He’s in hospitals, epidemiologist Alexander Gorelov of the Russian consumer protection agency Rospotrebnadzor said in a recent meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
For more than a week, Russian independent media and NGOs have been publishing anonymous complaints from angry medical workers that they have to work without adequate guarantees, and bureaucratic procrastination is costly. As the situation worsens, doctors are speaking more openly, perhaps even at the risk of incurring legal liability.
One of the most striking examples is the St. Petersburg Vreden Institute of Traumatology and Orthopedics. Three weeks ago, the government quarantined 500 patients and doctors here. The local press called the hospital a “Russian princess of diamonds,” a reference to a cruise ship docked in Japan that had a coronavirus outbreak.
The quarantine was due to end last week, but health authorities said the center would remain closed for now. April 26 There was a hospital call for help on YouTube: “I am coughing, I have chest pain, but no one comes to see me … there is no cure, there is no medicine,” he said. – No one comes to see how we feel, [neaišku]What is our treatment plan … when will it all end?
At the Vreden Institute, about 300 people infected with the coronavirus, Rashid Tichilov, head of the hospital, told the TASS news agency.
Dmitry Pashnikov, head of the spine surgery department at that hospital, reported on an instagram that all the doctors in his ward were infected with coronavirus. In an interview with Kommersant, he said he diagnosed the first case of COVID-19 on April 9 with an x-ray, and confirmation after the test came later.
The Vreden Institute did not respond to CNN’s request for comment. It is true that the acting director of the institute Andrei Čiornyj published a video address on his Instagram, in which he stated that there are objective difficulties in conducting research and the results of the laboratories are delayed.
According to A. Čiornyj, it has recently been possible to speed up the tests and separate the green zone for people whose results were twice negative. He thanked the hospital staff and patients for their patience, stressed that the hospital has the necessary supplies and is working to buy protective equipment.
Two hospital staff members who did not want to be identified said there were no adequate assurances and that many doctors did not receive their test results. According to them, the scanners showed pneumonia.
“All my friends, 80 percent. Colleagues are sick,” said a medical worker at CNN. “The nurses are sick, but they have to work and change intravenous catheters for patients.”
Some patients with serious conditions have been successfully transferred to other clinics. The nerves of those who remained were strained, a woman told YouTube.
The difficult situation is not only at the Vreden Institute. As CNN calculated, at least 23 hospitals in Russia were quarantined in April, according to medical reports and official reports.
There are no official statistics on the number of infected medical personnel in Russia, the Russian Ministry of Health and Rospotrebnadzor did not respond to requests for comment.
Some hospitals in quarantine were for COVID-19 patients, but most were routine hospitals, maternity clinics or psychiatric wards where infected people were primarily affected by other medical conditions and where doctors did not have personal protective equipment, he reported. the Union of Doctors.
Putin has been criticized by the Russians for sending a large amount of protective equipment to the United States, Italy, and Serbia, and some Russian doctors have to sew masks and buy protective suits.
The Kremlin denies the lack of safeguards. In a conference call with regional leaders last Tuesday, Putin said the government had halted the spread of the coronavirus, although he acknowledged that hospitals and doctors still lack protective equipment.
“It just caught our eye then. But compared to what we need, that’s not enough,” he said.
Some doctors complain that hospitals have stopped monitoring staff to avoid mandatory quarantine. According to Andrei Konoval, the head of a medical union, a positive test by a doctor means quarantine for most of the colleagues, and then nobody went to work.
“In this regard, the fight is lost,” he said. “Recently, we have seen more and more cases where an employer deliberately refuses to inspect employees to hide the real situation.”
Moscow ambulance workers also complain about the lack of security measures. In asking that his name not be released, Artyom said his team received personal protective equipment, but worked 24 hours a day due to numerous calls. with short breaks.
According to the regulations, the ambulance team must consist of a driver and two paramedics. According to Artiom, not all teams have been working for many weeks, because half of their colleagues are sick and there is no one to replace them.
Both Artyom and Konoval said there was a shortage of nurses and paramedics even before the pandemic, blaming the controversial healthcare reform that had led to massive job cuts, the closure of many hospitals and centers for infectious diseases.
Underfunded Russian regional hospitals have further felt the lack of protective equipment, and the government has been slow to respond to requests from many hospitals.
Doctors turn to activists and NGOs to try to get the equipment they need. But public speaking has consequences: Research committees in at least five regions interviewed authors of posts on social media sites, CNN reported.
The doctors union wrote on Twitter that some health workers were threatened with fines if they spread false news about the lack of protective equipment.
“We have received more than 200 requests for lack of everything, especially protective suits, respirators and glasses,” said Ivan Konovalov, director of the union. “Absolutely all regions are missing, including Moscow.”
The Russian Federal Security Service has asked the Medical Union to provide statistics on the complaints it receives.
Doctors have created a “Memories List” website, which will publish the names of all doctors who died of coronavirus.
“The only goal is not to forget the dead colleagues,” said Alexei Erlich, a Moscow-based cardiologist who co-authored the project.
Last week, the list included the names of 70 doctors. The organization says this is far from everything, as it is difficult to obtain official confirmation of the cause of death. Russia does not publish the number of doctors killed, only Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov acknowledged the “sad news” about the deaths of doctors.
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