[imagesource: Alexey Druzhinin/SPUTNIK/AFP via Getty Images]
Being a healthcare worker at this moment in time must be a pretty terrifying experience, and many of the accounts coming out of places like northern Italy and New York City have been harrowing.
That’s just part of the reason we cheer and clap at 8PM each night, although I’m sure the desire to connect with one another in the communal act of making noise also plays a part.
In Russia, which has completely botched its coronavirus response and is now seeing things spiral out of control at a rate of knots, being a healthcare worker comes with an additional danger.
Speak out against the conditions you work under, which could be seen as criticism of President Vladimir Putin (pictured above in protective gear), and there’s a decent chance you’ll end up ‘falling out’ of a hospital window.
Over to CNN:
Alexander Shulepov, an ambulance doctor in Voronezh, a city about 320 miles south of Moscow, is in serious condition after falling from a hospital window on Saturday…
Shulepov was hospitalized for coronavirus on April 22, the same day he and his colleague Alexander Kosyakin posted a video online saying that Shulepov had been forced to continue working after testing positive for coronavirus.
Kosyakin had previously criticized hospital administration for protective gear shortages on his social media and was questioned by the police for allegedly spreading fake news.
Shulepov had previously withdrawn his criticism in a second video message that many say was filmed under duress.
Last week, Elena Nepomnyashchaya, the acting head doctor of a hospital in the Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk, passed away after a stay in intensive care.
Nepomnyashchaya is reported by local media to have fallen out of a window during a meeting with regional health officials, where concerns were raised about the lack of protective gear in the hospital.
In late April, Natalya Lebedeva, the head of the emergency medical service at Star City, the main training base for Russia’s cosmonauts, also passed away “after a fall”:
The hospital within the Federal Biomedical Agency, which says it treated her for suspected coronavirus, released a statement that “a tragic accident” occurred, without elaborating. The hospital did not respond to CNN’s request for comment.
In the statement, the hospital said, “She was a true professional in her field, saving human lives every day!”
Until she suffered “a fall”, that is.
Vladimir Putin has a long and storied history of doing away with dissenters, but it is still shocking that what are essentially state-sanctioned murders can be carried out in the midst of a pandemic sweeping the country.
The latest stats from Worldometer show that Russia has in excess of 145 000 confirmed cases of COVID-19, along with 1 356 deaths.
Tragically, you can add at least two healthcare workers to that figure.
[sources:cnn]
