Covid Russian Crisis

REFUSING TO REALLY RECORD

THE REST IS SILENCE

By Stephen Wilson

 

"I hear the same thing all the time from my friends or relatives who have fallen ill. The conversation tends to go {following two weeks treatment} 'Doctor do I have Covid ? 'No you don't have Covid. We think you have some virus' . 'So that means I can go outside?' 'No, you can't go outside and you have to keeping take the medication'. Or Doctors say, "We don't know what you have but you have to keep on taking anti-malaria tablets". This is the medicine which is usually given to patients who are ill with Covid 19. When patients keep asking doctors whether they have Covid 19 they don't give a straightforward answer and even keep silent. I'm certain that this is a result of political pressure and that doctors are being asked not to record new cases of Covid 19," stated Alexander ,{not his real name} a businessman who claims that up to 90% of people he knows have come down with the illness. 

Since Alexander has many useful contacts as well as experience at helping sick people, he is often asked to approach doctors or staff in clinics. For instance, last year Alexander had to help his aunt who had a two weeks fever. She was really worn out with fatigue. She called the Accident and Emergency and ended up being taken to one of the best hospitals number 52. But even the best hospital was in a dire state and was overstretched. There had been so many patients that they had to hastily build an extension. 

"The hospital extension was the like the size of a sports stadium," Alexander stated. "It was enormous but it was a terrible place. The air was very bad. There was no real air conditioning. She thought that her condition was getting worse in this place so she asked  the staff to discharge her. She agreed to sign all the documents they presented to her so she could leave the hospital." 

After his aunt returned home medical staff kept in regular contact with her every day and she fortunately recovered. Alexander states sick people picked up by ambulances often try to bribe the staff to take them to the best hospitals in Moscow which are usually number 52 and 40. When Alexander met some security men at the hospital they told them they had all been infected not just once but twice by Covid 19. Last December when Alexander had to arrange to put his cousin into one of the best hospitals he asked whether it was possible for his cousin to be treated by the best doctors at this hospital. An administrator replied, 'Yes, but you'll have to pay us 400,000 rubles'. Alexander was utterly astonished. It is not as if he is naive. He is well aware of the insipid deeply rooted corruption which pervades medical care. But he never expected to be asked for what amounts to one year's salary for some workers in Moscow! Instead, Alexander approached a very good doctor who supported a charity for assisting poor musicians. When he asked the doctor, "How much it would cost?" The doctor answered, "It won't cost your anything. But you can, if you want, donate something to our charity".

 

Although Medical care in Russia is supposed to be free as enshrined in article 41 of the Constitution of the Russian Federation, in practice many patients feel obliged to pay staff some money just to receive any decent attention at all. The quality and conditions in hospitals can often be very dire. Some doctors are so badly trained that they can't make a straightforward diagnosis of simple cases and patients often ask for a secondary diagnosis from another doctor to just be sure. One of my young students who was diagnosed with deadly cancer in Moscow had a second examination in Germany to be told she had no such cancer! It was a case of irresponsible misdiagnosis which gave her and her mother untold stress!

 

Alexander's claims of a policy not to record most cases of Covid 19 has long been confirmed by scientists and doctors. It was so blatantly self evident that the Russian government even admitted this in public that there had been 230,000 excess deaths since the beginning of the pandemic which amounts to 6 times the official figures. The Deputy Prime Minister stated that 81% of the those excess deaths were related to Covid 19. This would amount to a staggering figure of almost 200,000 deaths. A leading demographer Alexey Raksha stated that the government website and Rospotrebnadzor had deliberately under reported the scale of the cases. In fact, whether Russia has more or less Covid 19 deaths than America is almost a non-competitive question. Russia is thought to have the third world's worst figures from Covid 19 after Brazil and America.

 

At this moment of time the Russian Government has no intention of implementing a full scale lock down in contrast to the new situation in Germany and Britain. This is despite the rapidly rising number of infections and deaths which know no reprieve. The government claim they just can't afford it at a time when many people have already lost their jobs, suffered depleted income and are psychologically showing the strain.{Already 83% of Russian school children report feeling depressed and down} But those times are very bizarre. 

Alexander could not help noticing that this was a December which we had never previously witnessed. It was not just a case of the Covid 19 crisis. He told me, "In one week in December we had more sunshine than for 200 years! The temperature was so warm. We usually only have one sunny day in December!" We seem to have woken up in a wholly unreal Russia! A Russia without a real winter is an awesome anomaly.