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Russia did surprisingly well during the first corona wave, but now reality is catching up with our great neighbor to the east.
The corridors of the hospital are filled with corona patients, who in some cases don’t even have beds to lie down. The capacity of the morgues has skyrocketed, and in some Russian cities the waiting time for an ambulance is at least three days, according to the NTV television channel.
This is one of the things that makes Anastasia Vasilyeva look with great skepticism at the official coronation figures of the Russian government.
– There is something wrong, says the doctor on TV 2.
– I am sure that the official figures are at least ten times lower.
– cry
Vasiljeva is the leader of the independent Legealliansen union. She is a well-known figure in Russian society, among other things for being the regular doctor of the opposition leader Alexei Navalny.
In recent weeks, he has been traveling the vast country to get a taste of the state of the Russian healthcare system and its fight against the coronavirus.
What she has seen and experienced makes her sad and upset. There was a shortage of both medicine and infection control equipment. In several hospitals they did not even have disposable gloves.
– In one of the hospitals we visited, patients had gone on hunger strike because they did not receive treatment. When something like this can happen, I hardly find the words. What we saw was to cry.
It is not just the coronavirus that is coming to life in Russia now. According to Vasilyeva, almost every hospital in the country has suspended all other medical treatments.
– This applies to both cancer treatment and cardiovascular disease. No such patient receives help. They die at home because the ambulances do not arrive.
CRISIS MEASURES: At least 20,000 Russians are now infected every day. In Moscow, they have had to convert conference centers and stadium facilities into coronary hospitals. Photo: Reuters / Scanpix.
Toilet crisis
Since Vladimir Putin came to power 20 years ago, the number of Russian hospitals has been cut in half, according to figures from the Medical Alliance.
The plan was to centralize hospital operations in large cities, but the plan failed because investments in infrastructure did not keep pace. The result has been that many in the Russian countryside simply do not make it to the hospital because the standard of the road is not being maintained.
Meanwhile, health services in the districts are rotting away, Vasiljeva told TV 2.
In one of the hospitals he visited in Arkhangelsk County, they had divided the floors into two parts: one for those with a crown and one for those without.
But there was only one toilet on the floors, so the corona patients ended up using the same toilet as the healthy ones.
The result was predictable enough for the infection to spread.
– In modern Russia of the 21st century, we have a shortage of toilets. Imagine this, she says resignedly.
Kill thousands
According to official figures released on Thursday, Russia has exceeded 2 million infected and around 35,000 dead after the March pandemic.
According to Vasilyeva’s estimates, the actual death toll could be in the hundreds of thousands.
And it could get worse, the doctor fears, who believes authorities are using the Russian-developed vaccine that was launched in August as a sleeping pillow.
– They launched it after testing it with only 100 volunteers. And what they have published about it is also very doubtful. How to trust such a vaccine?
Meanwhile, Vasilyeva is desperate for a health care system that will hardly be able to cope with a further increase in the number of corona cases.
– Russia is dying. It is horrible what we are seeing now. I have pain inside me and I am ashamed for my own country. How could this be allowed to happen? They build advanced weapons and send rockets into space, while allowing the population to die.
