Crematorium for the mentally disabled?

Regarding the fire in a psychiatric hospital near Tambov, in the village of Buraki, Zherdevsky district, the Investigative Committee is now conducting an investigation, since on the night of May 1 there was a fire in a wooden building. Thanks to the fact that the fire alarm went off, 52 patients managed to escape, as did the staff. A single woman died, having fallen asleep with an unextinguished cigarette, which was presumably the cause of the disaster.

Firefighters arrived promptly and successfully contained the fire. No one required medical assistance. Whether there was negligence on the part of the management of the hospital in this case and whether it is necessary to initiate a criminal case - this issue is now being dealt with by the Investigative Committee.

The described incident is a tragedy, but a tragedy already familiar to the Russian region, where every summer there are fires in hospitals and boarding schools, always with numerous victims burned alive. Recently, on the night of April 26-27, psychiatric hospital No. 14 in Ramenki near Moscow burned down. So 38 people died there, including two employees. There was simply no fire alarm here. When the unbearable smoke began, spreading very quickly, the patients were fast asleep under the influence of antipsychotics and tranquilizers prescribed at night. If any of them managed to wake up, it was too late to run; fiery hell was already raging around them.

The windows in the establishment are barred, and you won’t be able to find an emergency exit in the acrid smoke—you’ll suffocate sooner. Nurse V. Volkova was therefore able to bring out only two of her charges. The corridor, she says, quickly became engulfed in flames.

Firefighters arrived on call only an hour later: their unit was located 50 (!) kilometers from the hospital. The river crossing was closed that day, and they had to take a detour. As a result, the building burned down and 38 people died.

I wonder how the Ramenki administration imagines the possibility of extinguishing a fire in such conditions? With patients fast asleep after an injection behind barred windows, with no alarms and fire extinguishing equipment, with a fire brigade 50 kilometers away?

I don’t think, of course, that when setting up an institution for seriously ill people - schizophrenics, drug addicts and alcoholics prone to psychosis with hallucinations - the local leadership was deliberately planning to quickly get rid of the ballast in the form of sick, helpless people who had to be cared for at state expense. However, it becomes impossible not to notice that for the unfortunate, who are often a burden to their relatives, special homes are created - ready-made, in fact, crematoria - in which they vegetate "surviving" (there is such a wonderful word) until the first fire, it becomes impossible.

This is done not out of malice, not out of some supernatural bloodthirstiness, but because of deep contempt for the life of a stranger and helpless person, because of a subconscious desire to get rid of him. Therefore, often nothing is provided to make sick people in boarding schools comfortable and safe. The May Day fire with only one death is just an extremely happy incident, an exception to the rule, may the relatives of the deceased forgive me for such words.

It seems that misanthropic ideas are not propagated here, but, on the contrary, are declared by the authorities, as if we have a social state. Many even believe in it. Although, as soon as winter ends, the guests of all kinds of boarding schools burn together with a clear flame, unable to get out of the dungeon with bars into the fresh air. And every time it turns out that the trap they fell into was an accident, an unforeseen combination of circumstances, and a year later other people find themselves in a similar trap and die. And for some reason, no conclusions are drawn for the future; no one wants to correct mistakes.

Negligence, sluggishness, violation of fire safety requirements, resulting in the death of two or more persons - the wording for the prosecutor's investigation may be different. I would like to focus attention not just on the stupid indifference of those who are obliged by duty to take care of the weak and disadvantaged, but about some of them - and not only them, but also about our common - fascisation, which allows some to equip real crematoriums for burning alive - for people who are "inferior" from someone's cannibalistic point of view - as hospitals and boarding houses, and for others - allowing a crime to be committed and not interfering.

Most citizens, having learned about those killed in the fire, will shrug their shoulders: they say, what can you do, another hospital burned down. Or two hospitals burned down. Or even four hospitals... But what can we do about it? This is an ordinary story for us!

And this is also ordinary everyday fascism, the background of our lives, familiar to everyone and even cozy, having become accustomed to it, we calmly go home to dinner and stare at the computer, easily throwing unpleasant thoughts out of our heads.