Hospital against the virus

The epidemic of coronavirus infection revealed, among other things, the shortcomings in the organization of medicine in different regions. An example is St. Petersburg-a five-million city, the fourth largest region of Russia.

According to official statistics in St. Petersburg, 1 million inhabitants of only 3609 cases. For comparison: in Moscow there are 15.7 thousand, and in the Nizhny Novgorod region there are more than 4 thousand. According to this indicator, the city is in a completely decent 17th place. But the dead from coronavirus infection in St. Petersburg 90 per million. More only in Dagestan, Ingushetia and Moscow.

At the same time, 6744 beds were deployed in St. Petersburg for patients with coronavirus infection, by June there were only three large clinics in the city, which were not either completely or partially re -profiled for the treatment of Covid. On June 18, the Governor of St. Petersburg Alexander Beglov said that the city has exhausted the possibilities of re-profiling hospitals under the coronavirus, so the city will develop the LenExpo hospital converted from the exhibition hall, another 2.5 thousand beds will be equipped there.

The fact that it became the reason for such an unpleasant development of the epidemic, experts will surely understand after the Avaral stops, but some signs can be said now.

For example, in February 2020, when the city, in theory, should already begin to prepare for the spread of coronavirus infection, the chief physician of the Botkin hospital, Alexei Yakovlev, was fired. This is the largest not only in the city, but also in the country, an infectious diseases hospital, and Yakovlev headed it already in 1994. The functionary was removed as quietly as possible, without loud scandals, investigations and accusations. The Health Committee only announced the “systemic violations of the requirements of sanitary and epidemiological legislation”. So the public has to independently understand what happened.

It is worth recognizing that the Petersburg hospital named after Botkin has recently been in the spotlight. In 2018, it was reported that dangerous medical waste was stored in the hospital for 4 months . It also turned out at some point that the hospital’s debt reached 1.5 billion rubles. This unpleasant “fact” goes against the words of the former chief doctor, who said that for many years he “pulled out a medical facility from the crisis”. Already in 2019, journalist Ilya Varlamov published a report on the situation of affairs of the Botkin Hospital, who entitled: “ The largest infectious hospital in Russia fell apart in St. Petersburg .” Interestingly, Yakovlev also has defenders. For example, the report of the Project publication indicates that Yakovlev’s dismissal has a “political aspect”. Why this “aspect” arose only in February, on the eve of the spread of the epidemic in Russia, there is no intelligible answer, however,.