The case of mass illness and death of pupils in a Kazan orphanage is being investigated

A major scandal is breaking out in Tatarstan due to the mass illness of pupils of the Derbyshkinsky orphanage and the death of two of them. A criminal case has been opened. Violations were detected at the boarding school, including sanitary standards and the anti-epidemic regime. Human rights activists believe that the tragedy occurred due to the lack of civil control: public activists are not allowed into orphanages.

Yesterday, the Investigative Department (ID) of the Investigative Committee reported that a criminal case had been opened into the death of two pupils at the Derbyshkinsky orphanage for mentally retarded children. He was brought in “on grounds of a crime” under Part 2 of Art. 293 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (negligence resulting through negligence in causing serious harm to health or death of a person), which provides for up to five years in prison. In addition, another 27 children, according to law enforcement agencies, were hospitalized with signs of acute respiratory viral infection and diarrhea.

The autonomous social service institution (AUSO) “Derbyshkinsky orphanage-boarding school for mentally retarded children” is assigned to the Ministry of Labor, Employment and Social Protection of the republic. The boarding school was founded in 1976. The main forms of its activities are social and everyday adaptation, correctional and educational, medical, and labor rehabilitation. Just over 200 children and adolescents aged 4–18 years live in the boarding house. The number of personnel is 158 people.

The first sick children began to arrive from the AUSO to the Republican Clinical Infectious Diseases Hospital named after. prof. A.F. Agafonova with symptoms of intestinal infection on September 25. According to the Investigative Committee, it was established that on September 30 at approximately 10.30 a.m. a 10-year-old girl died in the boarding school itself. And at lunchtime on the same day, a 10-year-old boy died in the intensive care unit of the hospital. According to the Investigative Committee, an investigative team has already visited the boarding school with a search and seized a number of documents necessary for the detectives. “The entire circle of persons who are obliged to ensure the safety of life and health of disabled children will be identified. A strict legal assessment will be given not only to the actions of the management of the orphanage itself, but also to the medical workers who provided medical care to the children,” the Investigative Committee said in a statement. It is possible that bringing only the boarding school employees to justice will not do. The message states that “investigators will check how officials of government bodies that monitor the activities of the orphanage performed their duties.”

Meanwhile, the Rospotrebnadzor office for Tatarstan identified “violations of sanitary norms and rules, sanitary-disinfection and anti-epidemic regimes.” Preliminary laboratory tests showed that the causative agent of dysentery was detected in five hospitalized children. In this regard, administrative violation protocols were drawn up. “The causes of the occurrence and spread of diseases will be reported additionally,” the department said yesterday.

“The condition of all those hospitalized is of moderate severity, but based on their somatic status (dystrophy disease - Kommersant), it is regarded as serious,” First Deputy Minister of Health of the Republic Sergei Osipov told reporters yesterday. According to him, in the neurodystrophy department of the boarding school, where 35 people are kept, there was an outbreak of shigillosis, a type of acute intestinal infection. Mr. Osipov noted that all employees of the boarding school are being examined, and the circle of suspected carriers of the infection has been narrowed to 71 people.

Already in the evening, the Investigative Committee stated that “no relationship has been established between the death of children and the hospitalization of boarding school residents with an intestinal infection.” According to the investigation, which refers to the preliminary results of the autopsy, the causes of death of the boy were cerebral palsy, acute heart failure and bilateral pneumonia, the girl died of pneumonia. “The investigation is considering various versions of what happened... The investigation into the criminal case continues,” the Investigative Committee said in a statement.

The Presidential Commissioner for Children's Rights, Pavel Astakhov, responded to the incident and promised to conduct “his own independent investigation.” On his Twitter page, he stated that his colleagues carried out an inspection at the Derbyshkinsky boarding school last year and identified violations: a small number of medical personnel, poor equipment and staffing of the medical unit. “The change in management (of the boarding school—Kommersant) that followed the inspection did not bring results. The medical unit was not sufficiently staffed,” Mr. Astakhov emphasized.

Human rights activists believe that the tragedy at the boarding school occurred due to a lack of public control. So, yesterday, as the Kazan Human Rights Center (KHC) reported, Nikolai Arkhipov, a member of the Public Chamber of Tatarstan, wanted to visit the boarding school, but the security guards of the institution did not allow him into the territory. “I am ready to become a representative of victims in a criminal case, but, according to current legislation, the interests of the children are probably represented by the director of the orphanage. There is a “conflict of interest,” Igor Sholokhov, head of the Communist Party of the Russian Orthodox Church, told Kommersant. He noted that “orphanages are absolutely closed” and “representatives of the public and human rights organizations do not have access there”, who, unlike officials, “will not declare wonderful conditions in the institution.” “Information about violations and crimes is revealed only in the event of an emergency—the death of children or their mass hospitalization,” says Mr. Sholokhov.

Kommersant was unable to get comments from the Derbyshkin boarding school and the press service of the Ministry of Social Protection of the Republic yesterday.

Andrey Smirnov

The boarding school is diagnosed