To Avoid Charges and to Keep Funding, Russian Doctors under Putin Frequently Lie about Causes of Patients’ Deaths, New Study Finds

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Aug. 10 – Errors by physicians account for ten to twenty percent of the deaths of patients around the world, but Russia has reduced its reported figure from 15 to only two percent. The reason is not improved treatment but outright falsification with doctors lying to avoid criminal sanctions and the loss of government support for themselves and their hospitals.

            That is the conclusion not only of a new investigation launched by Novaya Gazeta Yevropa (novayagazeta.eu/articles/2023/08/09/ne-sochtite-za-trup) but also by the latest annual report of Russian pathologists who call on officials to provide a more honest accounting of the consequences of medical errors (mednet.ru/images/materials/statistika/2022/a_doklad_2022.pdf).

            One Russian pathologist argues that “this is not a problem of medicine or the ministry of health alone. Instead, it is a systematic problem. We see the same thing in the army and in education. It is very difficult to speak the truth to the bosses who can take something away from you or declare you an enemy.”