The "memory List" Of Russian Doctors Who Died In Connection With The Pandemic Increased 3.5 Times In 3 Weeks

The "memory list" of Russian doctors who died in connection with the pandemic increased 3.5 times in 3 weeks

If on April 30 there were 74 names in the list, then as of May 21, the drafters of the document had already added 255 names of their colleagues to it.

Photo: CC0 Public Domain

According to official statements, at least 9,479 doctors have contracted the coronavirus and more than 70 have died, the Associated Press reported. However, a number of experts in the medical community are convinced that the data is understated, so they created the "Memory List" - an open document in which they independently enter information about the dead doctors, nurses, orderlies, laboratory assistants and other health workers.

Journalists of the "Mediazony" edition found official confirmation of the death of 186 people from this list, excluding, in particular, five doctors from Belarus. In addition, it was reported that at least three doctors committed suicide, that is, formally, the cause of their death was not the coronavirus. Mediazona has calculated that every 15th COVID-19 death in the country is a health worker. This is 16 times more than in six countries where the epidemic has reached comparable proportions.

The sad "record" in the "Memory List" belongs to Moscow - 73 medical workers died in the capital. In the Moscow region - 40. In Dagestan, where the situation with the spread of coronavirus has become catastrophic, 38 doctors have already died. In St. Petersburg, the pandemic claimed the lives of 20 health workers.

As the director of the Cancer Prevention Foundation, Ilya Fomintsev, who, together with his colleagues, created a consulting service "What to do" to help doctors, previously reported in an interview with MedPortal, hospitals across the country are in dire need of basic PPE - respirators, glasses, protective screens. At best, they are allocated to "covid" hospitals, and in medical institutions that are not officially involved in the fight against the pandemic, they are not at all.

“The idea of ​​dividing hospitals into covid and non-covid hospitals seems crazy to me. Any number of cases when patients infect staff. Glasses, respirators, screens, protective suits are now needed by all doctors,”the expert said.

According to a number of media reports and testimonies from people on social media, the acute crisis in Russian health care caused by the pandemic is exacerbated by pressure on doctors from the authorities. Every day, there are reports in the news and social networks that doctors cannot receive the promised additional payments for work in extreme conditions. Against this background, mass layoffs of hospital personnel began: for example, dozens of medical workers resigned in Novosibirsk, and another 40 in the Vladimir region. Today it became known about the dismissal of the administrator of the Kirov Clinical and Diagnostic Center Vera Votintseva, who spoke about the meager salaries in the medical institution and the absence of additional payments for working with coronavirus patients.

According to the president of the League of Physicians Semyon Halperin, the pandemic could further undermine Russian medicine, which has been seriously affected by the criticized health care reform.

"Now we are faced with the threat of complete destruction of the medical community," - quoted by Halperin Associated Press.