Pandemic Claiming More Collateral Victims Because of Putin’s Healthcare Optimization, Uchaykina Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, November 30 – Elena Uchaykina, the wife of a diabetic who may face amputation because the hospital that had been treating him has been repurposed for coronavirus victims, says that he is just one of many collateral victims of a healthcare system that was downsized earlier by Vladimir Putin to save money and now can’t cope with the pandemic.

            Because of her husband’s travails, the journalist says, she began exploring the broader issue of collateral victims of the pandemic in Russia. The authorities said cancer patients would suffer first because their treatments could be postponed. That has been true, but many other Russians suffering from other diseases are now at risk as well (apn.ru/index.php?newsid=38946).

            She reports case after case of such losses and argues that “the collapse of the [Russian] healthcare system has an obviously systemic character.” It is not, as the regime claims, in good shape but stressed. It is fundamentally inadequate to deal with those who need medical care even if they are not suffering from the coronavirus.

            And she cites some disturbing statistics. Russian deaths are up this year far more than can be accounted for by coronavirus losses even if one doubles what the authorities acknowledge in that case. Many of the tens of thousands of excess deaths are the direct result of the healthcare optimization program that deprived those now dead of getting adequate treatment.

            In too many places, Uchaykina continues, all other illnesses are being treated as if they did not exist because the regime is focusing now only on the pandemic. But many Russians have illnesses like diabetes, cancer and circulatory ailments that if left untreated will mean that many will suffer more or even die. 

            But there is yet another set of victims in this situation, she writes. In many hospitals, administrators restrict the access of relatives of patients who are not suffering from the coronavirus because they have put in place restrictions on contacts between coronavirus victims and their relatives and have simply extended these to all patients.

            That makes it worse for the patients and for their families and friends, even if it makes things easier for hospital administrators and medical personnel. And many of these relatives and friends are now expressing their outrage both in letters and calls to officials and, given the unresponsiveness of these, online – and behind each of these are thousands who stay silent.

            According to Uchaykina, ever fewer Russians are willing to do that. Instead, they can see that their government has no intention of helping them unless they happen by the luck of the draw to get sick with the disease of the moment. Otherwise, they will be allowed to suffer and die.

            “The right to receive medical assistance is a basic one, paid for by out taxes and ensured by the Constitution,” she continues. It is time to demand that the powers that be recognize that right and take steps to make sure it is real as opposed to a propagandist illusion. Otherwise, the number of collateral victims of the coronavirus pandemic will continue to grow.