Rest in the trench

Olga Zetrova since 1996 has been living among the pain. Unbearable, burning, from which a person forgets himself. Olga and her team try to restrain this pain, destroy, pick up

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Olga Zetrova speaks slowly and soulfully. It seems that she is losing every word about the hospice. She explains: “From 10 to 12 years old I did not speak, but only wrote, at school in the lessons. Because she stuttered very much. And I really, really wanted to say! Now I say, because I learned before I say something, to build the right phrases in my head, combinations of words in such a way as not to stutter. And this skill helps me carefully work with patients. ”

Conversation in a cafe

Olga Vasilievna is the head of the non -profit public Samara Hospice. She does not sit still, and I talked with her where she managed to catch her: in the office, at a lecture in a clinic, in a car, in the ward of patients and - unprecedented luxury - in a cafe where she did not eat anything, only said. About pain. And about the hospice.

The hospice can be just a hospital for seriously ill people. And then there is an atmosphere of despair, no sentiments, everything is fast. Or maybe a bright and beautiful place: “A week ago I was in the center of palliative assistance in Moscow. I go, say hello, patients in response: “Hello, we ask for mercy!” -And they smile, someone barely, with their eyes, and someone is wide and joyful. They feel at home. So with us. The doctor will ask everything in detail: how do you feel how you eat? The nurse will hug, the volunteer walks and feeds. We have a final stop, and running, inattention - no. ”

Olga Vasilievna Zetrova, chief physician of the Samara Hospice photo: Daria Aslanyan for TD

The Samara Hospice is a small hospital for four beds and an exit service for 50-60 people. Doctors and nurses go to the house of seriously ill patients. And Olga also rides, who, in fact, should not do this. She is a manager. But without patients, Olga cannot. And among them, not only those who are inconspicuously ill, but also their relatives, who also need help.

“I need air. And the air is people. We need motivation, you need to see why you are working. After communicating with officials and papers, a trip to patients is a holiday. There is a return from patients, from officials - not always. ”

About round -the -clock calls

Recently, Olga forgot the phone at home. In the evening I returned - 62 unnecessary calls. Patients, their relatives and strangers constantly call and write. With me, Olga responds and consults someone on an anesthetic for a long time and in detail. “This is not a hospice patient, this is a woman who is recorded in me as“ Tanya Moscow Airport, ”explains, finishing. - My cell phone walks around the world, and people often write for advice. Tanya called, said: “Hello, I am Tanya, I live in Moscow, and my dad lives in Samara, on the way to the airport, and he is sick, help.”

We talked, and I managed to see her father and advise them. I also have, for example, a big correspondence with Marina. Marina wrote six months ago that her dad, who lives in Syzran, cancer of her tongue and severe pains that doctors cannot relieve. I figured out that doctors do not prescribe tramadol. I called there - they wrote out. I appointed him a scheme of pain relief - he immediately began to eat, but before that he could not. Then we switched to an anesthetic patch, his family could not get on our own. It is full in warehouses, but not always prescribed. It was bought for the whole region for presidential money, but not available. I have no explanation, except for the indifference of some doctors. Colleagues from the clinic call me a “quiet little monster” because I am not conflicting, but I always achieve pain relief. ”

Olga Vasilievna at home in the patient of the on -site service photo: Daria Aslanyan for TD Olga Vasilievna examines the patient at home photo: Daria Aslannyan for TD

“This practice - to give their numbers to patients and their loved ones - appeared with us about 15 years ago. And first, our girls said that this is a big load - to give a phone to call on the weekend. Two years have passed - and everything changed, they also began to leave the numbers of phones. We come to the family as assistants and friends. And friends can call. And if you spoke with the patient’s wife on Friday, found out how Yura, and on Monday you are calling and finding out that he would be buried (and you did not know because you couldn’t call), this is terrible. And this is a blow for you too. A much smaller blow when they call you and you decide what to do. ”

About how the hospice began

When, in 1995, Dr. Marina Aleksandrovna Champagne decided to organize a hospice at home, Olga Zetrova was 32 years old.

“Marina worked in gastroenterology, often encountered cancer. There were severe patients with severe pain. She was the first to think that something should be done with anesthesia.

I then worked at the Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry, and Marina asked what else can be added legally to relieve pain from one of her patients? And since 1995, we began to leave for people. We became such firefighters who extinguished the fire of pain and saved those who could be saved. They helped people choose the necessary dosage from available drugs. But oncological disease, there are other symptoms that need to be engaged in: shortness of breath, itching. And we quickly realized that a person needs to be engaged in systematically, one anesthesia cannot be done. And we studied, including providing psychological assistance.

Olga Vasilievna photo: Daria Aslanyan for TD

When we gained experience, they turned to the health department. They said: “We are ready to provide such assistance, organize the Departure Service Department!” They answered: “Sorry, we do not plan.” We said: “But what about Moscow and Petersburg? After all, they provide there!” “This is the capital. That's when we are ordered to organize a hospice, then we will organize it.”

When we were refused, Marina’s husband offered us one room in the territory of his medical company IDK, and we decided to organize a public hospice. At first it was help exclusively at home, then this small hospital appeared. Four beds are very few, much more in need. We need a hospital for no less than 12 beds. For more than a year we have been looking for a new room. We are looking, of course, through the Ministry of Health, because we do not have money to build something of our own. The possibilities of fundraising in Samara are very modest. There is an artist in Switzerland, who sold his picture at an auction for 20 thousand dollars. He would like to transfer money to us, but he will not be able to, because then we will be a “foreign agent”. And so wherever you look - everywhere the wall. In general, in a year of search, we were offered about ten options - and all inappropriate, and we want it to be for people. So that you can break the kindergarten in the yard so that the patients walk. The dream is to organize an exit team of children's palliative care, because how many more seriously ill children! ”

Olga's conversation in the office

The office of the Samara hospice is two cabinets and one procurement on the basement of a residential building. The sturgeon cabinet is so small that two seats cannot be expanded in it. Half a single window closes a snowdrift and a bumper of a parked car. Neither the sky nor the legs of passers -by - nothing.

Olga Vasilievna Zetrova at the building of the Samara Hospice hospital photo: Daria Aslanyan for TD

Yesterday we broke up with Olga at ten in the evening, and “calmed down”, she, according to her, at three in the morning. “I helped our Ministry of Health draw up the correct application for pain relief, you need to register everything, answer all questions. This is necessary, otherwise medical institutions will order not what you need ... ”Olga does not have enough working day to deal with all questions and answer all the letters - she works at night. And already in the morning, how now, he sits again, buried in a computer.

About a weightless gift

“I always have a lot of additional work. I am writing articles, participate in the work of the Vera Foundation's educational program, I spend the training of doctors as part of a grant, go to conference, by regions with lectures ... Here I have a letter from the Palliative Program of the Advita Foundation: “Tell me, please, what methods, methods you use to predict a change in the patient's condition in dynamics? ..” This question is directly to the doctor (laughs.) Or a letter from a specialist of the fund “Vera”: “I am sending materials on constipation”. Today I will be constipated, and this is very, very important. They ask about one drug from the Ministry of Health: what do you know, can it be used? ”

On Olga’s neck, a thin gold chain with a small pebble, similar to a tear. “I don’t wear earrings, nothing, even the engagement ring sometimes interferes with me. And this jewelry brought me the daughter of one patient, Katya, a year after my mother was gone. My mother and I had a close relationship, and Katya handed me a box with the words: “Olga Vasilievna, my mother left me such a testament for you. This is her tear of gratitude, she prays for you there in the sky.” And so I put this jewelry and, imagine, did not feel it, it does not bother me at all. So I wear it. ”

Sturgery talks with the patient, listens to complaints, corrects the appointments of the photo: Daria Aslanyan for TD

- Olga Vasilievna, you are talking only about patients and work. Are you yourself?

- I have not been on vacation for four years. For me, rest is a switch between different activities. I'm afraid to get out of the topic, miss something important. After all, they rest in the trench, playing the accordion. So I am. I don’t even know if I had rested if I had left somewhere. Here are behind the Volga we have a small room on Ponton. My husband and I go there in the summer, we lie on the sand. The phone takes there, fortunately.

- And how do you live with this with this?

-Nyuta Federmeser once said: "When they say to me, take care of yourself, I do not understand what people mean." And I agree with her. Someone gets joy from traveling, someone from wine, someone from dates. I get joy from the family and my work. In the New Year, it comes to me under a thousand messages! All this is worth it ...

The conversation in the hospital

The hospital of the Samara hospice has been taking patients since 2000. And since 2000, the number of beds has not grown - there is nowhere to grow. The house is very small, the “update” - as it calls it sturgeon. But inside - at home. Light, warm and somehow joyful.

About the biggest desire

The feeling of joy does not fit with the word "hospice". I stand in the middle of the chamber, paintings hang on the walls, it does not look like a hospital at all. An elderly, very thin and very ruddy woman comes in. This is Galina Georgievna , who has served greatly over the past few months and almost could not walk. Ten days have passed, and Galina Georgievna is already going to walk. And he doesn’t even allow her to help her take off his boots: “No need, I can already.” And yesterday, laughing, she fired at the nurse in the yard snowballs.

Olga Vasilievna goes to the patient’s patient Hospice photo: Daria Aslanyan for TD

Opposite Galina Georgievna lives a woman named Eugene. This is a new patient, Olga Vasilievna has not yet seen her. She enters the ward to Eugene, sits on the edge of the bed.

“You have a very pleasant atmosphere, such a team,” the patient says hard. - Thank you very much. So I was lucky, we just called, and came to us immediately, everyone told us. When you lie in oncology, there is practically no information: neither about nutrition, nor about medicines, nor about how to live. They wrote you down, and you do not know what next. You survive as you can. And then I found you. "

The woman says that the patient and her daughter are constantly laughing behind the wall. And she, hearing their laughter, also involuntarily smiles. That she has no feeling that she is in the hospital, and even more so in the hospice. As if she arrived at the sanatorium. Sturgeon takes her hands in her. Notices that they are very soft. “These are your girls peaks to me with cream, care. Here people gathered from God, such a miracle, ”says Eugene.

Sturgeon talks with the patient photo: Daria Aslanyan for TD Olga Vasilievna examines the patient photo: Daria Aslanyan for TD SPIRITION OF PATIENT PHOTO: Daria Aslanyan for TD

When we say goodbye, Olga Vasilievna suddenly gets up between us, two women, and makes her greatest desire: “I want a large hospital, at least 12 beds. So that there is a place under the piano, or maybe even an organ! " “God forbid, to come true,” Eugene says in a half -whisper.

Conversation on the way from clinic to hospice

Olga Vasilievna and I are going to the hospice from the clinic, where she gave to the health workers a lecture about pain. About drugs, about how to determine the patient’s strength in the patient and how to stop it. After the lecture, I ask her that she herself knows about the pain.

About tears and letters to the future

I ask Olga Vasilievna when she cried for the last time. And I get the unexpected in response: “Today. My patient Alena has a birthday today. And I prayed in the morning and cried that her birthday would not become the day of her death. I asked God for a miracle that she would not leave today or tomorrow. For mom, the child’s birthday is a special day. And I really want him to stay for her. ”

Already on the porch of the hospice, where we stop to warm our faces on the barely warm sun, Olga Vasilievna recalls another patient, Lena. “Each patient teaches us something,” she says. - There is no one who would not leave a trace. But there are special people ... A few years ago, the hospice helped Lenochka, who fought to the end, and left in great humility. Lena had four children, the oldest was 18, and the youngest was seven. When Lena realized that she would leave and resigned herself, she wrote letters to her children. For a few days of birth, on the day of the wedding. The last year of her life, she thought only about them, about how to get away from them, but leave them their support. Something your mother could only tell you at the age of 18, something at 25. Realizing that she would not have such an opportunity, she wrote parting words for them. These letters lie at the dad, children will receive them at the right time.

Olga Vasilievna Zetrova photo: Daria Aslanyan for TD

Two years ago, I also wrote such letters to my children and my husband. What I wish them, what was important to me in life, how much I love them. Such a spiritual testament ... "

On these Olgin words I break and sob. Sturgeon takes my hand as he takes all his patients. Her hand is soft, warm. And lets me go.

Conversation with readers

In 2010, in the Samara region, 100 people out of 5 thousand in need of patients received anesthesia, and in 2018 - 1.9 thousand out of 5 thousand. According to Olga Vasilievna, the goal is 4 thousand people, and she has no doubt that it is achievable.

Samara hospice exists on donations. And a little more with state money. Hospice receives a subsidy from the Ministry of Health to provide palliative assistance, it is enough for a partial payment for work at very low rates (the departure of the Samara Oncocenter brigade costs 2.7 thousand rubles, the departure of the Samara hospice brigade - 800 rubles). The salaries of the exit service and doctors working in the hospital are very small. The Help Foundation and the Vera Foundation help the Samara hospice financially - money is needed for medicines, for medical equipment and financial assistance to employees. I am sure that if the hospice does not have money at all, Olga Vasilievna and the Hospice team will still work day and night, save people, hold their hands, pray for them and speak with them on the phone. Just because they are. But so unfair. Please, let's make all together so that the employees of the Samara hospice can sometimes exhale and feel that someone can also want to help with an invisible, but strong hand to hold the hand. Sign up for a regular donation in favor of the hospice, every 100 rubles is priceless.