“Are you feeling bad? Well, don’t come to us”: medical assistance in police departments

“Soldiers and prisoners cannot get sick”

“18 years ago I had a stroke. When they do a CT scan on me, the doctors change their faces, seeing what’s going on in my head and being surprised that I’m an adequate person,” St. Petersburg activist Ali Khantimirov tells OVD-Info. While being escorted to a special detention center, he hit his head on the walls of the paddy wagon and for the next three days he experienced severe headache, dizziness and nausea. - Well, it hurts and hurts. I thought maybe it would stop, but it still hurts the next day. I say [to the doctors at the special detention center]: “My head hurts.” They look at me and think that I’m being a fool—soldiers and prisoners can’t get sick, they just want to make things easier for themselves.”

Despite a history of stroke and constant complaints, Khantimirov was given only diuretic tablets in the hospital. three days with a suspected concussion He spent . Then a defense lawyer met with him, learned about his condition and demanded that doctors be called and medical assistance provided. The police officers ignored the request. The defender himself eventually called an ambulance for him.

Doctors recorded a bruise of the soft tissues of the head, but found no reason for hospitalization. Khantimirov was returned to the special detention center to serve his arrest, recommended not to experience stress and to take pills for headaches.

In 2015, appeared an online martyrology of those killed in police departments, “Russian Ebola,” on the Internet. Based on data from open sources - publications in the media, confirmed by the press services of law enforcement agencies - in 2015, the project counted 109 deaths. By the next year, press services began publishing significantly fewer releases, but Ebola still found information about 42 deaths.

Police paramedics guarding the mortality rate

Law The Police obliges officers to call an ambulance if necessary and provide first aid to detainees. The list of competencies in providing first aid was determined by the Ministry of Health and Social Development. An employee must have them.

The website of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Bashkortostan even has a special video course for police officers. “How quickly and efficiently assistance is provided will determine the victim’s chances of preserving life or making a full recovery and, as a result, reducing the mortality rate,” reminds the drawn man without a face in a police cap. Sanctions are then given in the event of criminal liability for failure to provide assistance.

As Igor Kalyapin, chairman of the “Committee against Torture,” tells OVD-Info, in police departments located at temporary detention centers, medical assistance should be provided by a doctor or paramedic of the detention center. But not all departments have temporary detention facilities. Police officers with medical knowledge are even rarer.

“Unfortunately, in many departments that have temporary detention facilities, the police authorities have taken this path: instead of hiring a full-fledged medical worker, they send their police officer to complete some kind of medical course. It is as if he is receiving a secondary medical education, as if he is becoming a part-time paramedic. But as practice shows, such police paramedics do not have any qualifications at all. And we understand that it is impossible to combine - not so much even the functions as the brains - of a policeman, who in certain situations must use violence, and a doctor, who must proceed from completely different priorities and have completely different ethics and psychology. A policeman remains a policeman, even if he has completed these courses in good faith. Which rarely happens. In most cases, when this policeman or doctor cannot provide first aid, an ambulance should be called,” says Kalyapin.

“The detainee is not a good person for them”

Employees, according to departmental orders , are required to call an ambulance immediately at the request of the detainee. If an ambulance cannot arrive, the police must themselves deliver the detainee to a medical facility using official transport.

The reasons why police often do not comply with this order are varied.

Kalyapin explains this situation by the dehumanization of those detained by police officers: “In our country, psychologically, police officers - especially junior officers - consider themselves crime fighters. They should not work according to instructions, not according to the law, but punish people according to the truth. And for them, the detainee is the same bad person with whom they must fight, and their task is to make him feel bad. If something completely bad and dangerous happens to him, then, of course, they will call. Well, so - “Are you feeling bad?” Well, you don’t need to come to us.” That’s the attitude they have.”