Seven deaths in two months due to the routine procedure-this is scary. But what was revealed after the death of people is afraid no less

The number of dead and accused of poisoning patients with a barium in the St. Petersburg medical center was almost equal. At least seven people buried relatives in December and January. At least 23 Petersburgers were heavily poisoned, but survived. Five employees of the city advisory and diagnostic center No. 1 (KDC), where people underwent a procedure that has become a deadly-an X-ray x-ray with contrast (using a barium sulfate), the investigation was charged. One of the defendants in the case-the senior nurse of the center, 58-year-old Marina Efremova-immediately after communication with investigators decided to reduce his life.

"Lesha, what did you drink?"

“I don’t know how to continue to live.” - Neither in the eyes nor in the voice of Alexandra Tsareva there are no tears. At the end of January, she buried her husband-42-year-old Alexei Tsarev. She was left alone with four children, the youngest daughter is 4 years old. - The elders seem to understand what happened, and at the same time cannot be accepted. And Little Nastya is waiting for dad every day.

Alexey, according to his wife, was not sick of anything serious. He was tormented by heartburn. In order to get rid of her, he turned to a gastroenterologist in the CDC No. 1. On January 25, he had to make a control fibrogastroduodenoscopy (FGDS) of the stomach, and the 26th to get to the doctor. But the FGDS did not have free places for recording, and the princess was offered to go to the X -ray with contrast: they say, no worse, even more informative.

“After the X -ray, the husband returned home barely alive,” says Alexandra. “I asked him from the threshold: Lesha, what did you drink?” What did you give? He said that he drank literally a couple of sips of a mixture with a barium, where he was added by citric acid and soda, according to the explanation of the doctors, "to expand the stomach."

My husband immediately dizzy, darkened in his eyes. He reported this to the medical staff. They answered him: "This is normal, drink on."

The husband finished it. Carried out the procedure. He went to pay for her, then another hour was waiting for the result. He was getting worse and worse. The husband complained to the doctors. But they sent him home: "Fly, everything will be fine."

However, nothing normal happened to Alexei: he could neither get up nor sit down, his head was spinning, he was continuously sick and rushed with blood. When the spouse paralyzed the face and hands, Alexander, who for several hours called “03”, nevertheless convinced the doctors to fix the call. At eight in the evening, the ambulance took Alexei to the Botkin hospital, where he died on the night of January 26.

Alexandra works as a nurse in kindergarten. She has no relatives who could help her.

“I don't know how to live now.” I can’t feed one four children for a nurse’s salary.

After the death of the breadwinner, no one provided any help to the Tsarev family. They didn’t even apologize, they did not express condolences. The only thing the city proposed to the widowed mother of many children is a free consultation with a psychologist.

"This does not happen"

Tsarev is one of the three patients whose sudden death on January 25–27 attracted the attention of the investigating organs. In just three days with the same signs of severe poisoning by an unknown substance to the hospital. Botkin delivered six. In addition to Alexei, two elderly women died in the hospital. The number of victims, but survivors, by January 28 reached 23 people. The day before, they made an X -ray x -ray with contrast using the barium sulfate in the KDC No. 1.

63-year-old Tatyana Eremina also died on January 25, but at home. In the morning she went to the X -ray with contrast.

“The mother did not feel the special need for this examination: she had a stomach ulcer at the healing stage, but they gave a direction in the clinic,” says the son, Dmitry Eremin. - In the afternoon I called her on a different reason and heard such a voice as I had never heard. Asked: "What happened?" “Bad after the procedure,” she whispered. Late in the evening returned from work, my mother slept, did not disturb. In the morning he went to her: she lies in the same position, but she doesn’t breathe, died. I called "112". Doctors arrived. I explained that my mother went to the clinic, made an X -ray. They immediately cut off: "This does not happen, it is impossible."

The Main Directorate of the IC of the Russian Federation in St. Petersburg reacted to the deadly poisoning of the GSU of the IC of the Russian Federation rapidly. On January 28, a criminal case was instituted on the fact of causing death by negligence (Article 109 of Part 3 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation) and the provision of services that do not meet the safety requirements of consumer life and health (Article 238 of Part 3 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation). On the same day, investigators seized all the documentation and equipment to the CDC. The course of the investigation was taken into control by the city prosecutor's office and chairman of the RF IC Alexander Bastrykin.

On the evening of January 28, the investigators detained the first accused - the chief physician of the KDC No. 1 of Yevgeny Popov. The court put him into custody until March 26. According to the investigation, it was Popov who approved the application for the purchase of the drug “Barios of Sulfuric Sulfuries 0.10 (H2O)%”, which is not included in the state register of drugs, cannot be used for medical purposes and is a danger to human life and health.

The city health committee has not yet explained how a medical institution could buy a non -medical drug and give it to patients for a long time. But the officials of the Komzdrava immediately warned that the barium sulfate, after which people died, was used in other hospitals in St. Petersburg. Roszdravnadzor urgently prohibited the use of the drug on January 28.

Investigators, meanwhile, studied the lists of those who in recent months have examined the gastrointestinal tract in the medical center. On his website on January 28, the announcement was posted: “We ask all patients who underwent a study of the stomach using the sulfate barium and experiencing malaise to contact us.” So it turned out that the death of medical procedures turned out in December for three more people.

- On February 15, in the criminal case, seven dead and about 30 victims. But the investigation is ongoing, examinations are conducted, and the numbers may change, ”said Sergey Kapitonov, senior assistant to the head of the media department for the Media Media of the State Pedagogical University of the IC of the Russian Federation for St. Petersburg.

Everything came together

Victoria Andreeva did not immediately believe in the natural death of her mother. The 66-year-old Tatyana Andreeva suspected gastritis. On December 23, she made an X -ray of the stomach with contrast in the CDC No. 1 and died a few hours later.

“Mom became bad an hour after the procedure,” says Victoria. - She was sick. Barios came out with white powder fluid and remained wherever his mother vomited - on furniture, on plumbing. Mom was tormented all day. In the evening I called an ambulance. At 21:16, according to the signal sheet, the doctors closed the call and left. At 21:30, my mother stopped answering calls. At first we did not associate the death with the barium. X -ray with contrast is a simple procedure that no one dies from. In the morgue, after opening, mom was diagnosed with heart failure. Although my mother never knew heart problems. She had good health. At first we thought that something wrong was done by the ambulance. We ordered a forensic medical examination. Waiting for results. And they waited at the end of January of the news of the poisoning of Petersburgers by the barium. Immediately all my mother’s notes from the center raised, and everything came together, everything became clear.

On December 22, 74-year-old Yevgeny Volodin visited a similar examination in the KDC No. 1. At the exit from the clinic, it was vomited, then several times on the street and at home. At 17 o’clock, the ambulance delivered Volodina to the Mariinsky hospital.

“The mother had two heart cardiaments in the reception of my mother,” says the son, Nikolai Volodin, who was nearby. - At 22 o’clock, already in the intensive care unit, the third stop happened, and the mother died. Doctors did not understand why this happened.

The 75-year-old Lyudmila Rechinsky was disturbed by the pain in the liver. The gastroenterologist sent her for examination on December 24. After the procedure, a woman became ill. She asked the doctors if it was normal, should she sit at the office, wait a bit? Doctors answered: go home.

- Mom called me from home: "I am dying, I am very bad, tears with blood, everything hurts, breathing hard."

I called an ambulance and also went home from work, - Anna Rechinskaya, the daughter of Lyudmila, restores the events of those days for up to a minute.

At about 16 o’clock, Revinskaya was taken to the Elizabethan hospital, where on the night of December 25 she was gone.

- Initially, a month before the criminal case, I wanted to figure out: why did my mother die? - says Anna. - I thought, maybe they gave the wrong dosage of the barium? Maybe she had contraindications? After my mother’s death, I was at the reception of Elena Medvedeva, the head of the radio diagnostics department of the KDC No. 1. I came to her with documents. Rethered in detail. She immediately began to convince me that death is definitely not from the barium: “This cannot be from the barium, it could be from anything.” I promised me to provide information on the drug. I did not provide anything. And the thought does not come out of my head: if Medvedev then listened to me, January deaths could have been avoided!

In custody and under the wheels

On February 7, Elena Medvedev was imprisoned for two months in a pre -trial detention center. She asked for house arrest, promised to cooperate with the investigation. But the court did not consider it possible to leave her at large, fearing that she could affect witnesses.

On February 9, by the court decision, the deputy chief physician Alexander Feofanov and the head of the X-ray cabinet, the radiologist Natalya Surovenko, were arrested.

About all four detentions, and then the arrests promptly and regularly reported both the Main Directorate of the IC of the Russian Federation in St. Petersburg and the United press service of the vessels of St. Petersburg. With details, with photos. Only the fifth accused was mentioned a week later, casually and did not even name the name.

On February 2, following the head physician, investigators detained the senior nurse of the KDC No. 1 Marina Efremova. She was also charged in a criminal case and elected a preventive measure in the form of a non -departure subscription. What they talked about with the nurses in the offices on Moscow Prospekt (the second building of the GSU of the IC of the Russian Federation in St. Petersburg) can only be assumed, but at about 13 hours on February 3 on the Kissolovo -Sands (Vsevolozhsk district of the Leningrad region), Marina Efremova tried to reduce his life. The truck driver, he said, noticed a woman who jumped out onto the road right in front of his car, and managed to slow down. Marina received serious injuries, but remained alive. Now she is in intensive care in a state of medical coma, on the Ivl apparatus. Doctors do not make forecasts.

“The wife left a suicide note,” Yuri Efremov, the nurse’s husband, told the “new” nurse. - But it does not indicate one hundred percent, who and in what is to blame. She just said goodbye and that's it. I can only guess. I can offend people with them. I could blame someone if there was a fatal outcome. But Marina survived. I can't talk for her.

-She somehow connected her decision with the situation in the center and a criminal case?

- Naturally, what do you think? She tied to me, or what? 38 years have lived together in the soul! I didn’t even notice anything the day before. Outwardly, everything was fine. At five o’clock in the evening of February 3, we were going to go to a meeting with a lawyer. I left the house to clean the snow near the garage. And the wife said that she would go to the store. Then they wanted to have lunch and go. And at two o’clock the daughter called. She rode along the highway in the direction in which the mother went a little earlier. I saw a traffic police, a truck on the road, stopped and found out what trouble.

Marina was also not frank with colleagues at work.

“But we are sure: there was a pressure on her from some side,” said the “new” nurse of the KDC.

“Either they threatened her, or something else.” If a person decided to commit suicide, then there was something. Not just she rushed under the car.

Efremova, paramedic by education, has been working in the CDC No. 1 since 2011. Yuri absolutely does not believe in his wife’s guilt, but trusts the investigation.

- And who, besides them, will understand? After all, before accusing, investigators must build an evidence base, which can be transferred to the court. Only the court decides guilt. If the barium was good, then what questions are for people who are accused? If the barium was bad, then questions to manufacturers.

But the barium was not bad and not good. He was just not the same. And the question is different: why was the doctors of the KDC No. 1 used?

About barium - word

Doctors prescribe contrast radiography of the upper gastrointestinal tract to patients quite often for diseases such as ulcer, gastritis, stomach hernia, neoplasms in the form of a tumor, etc. The barium sulfate is used for contrast: it reflects x -rays and allows you to get more detailed images. Typically, patients take the drug inward before the study and during it.

-For these purposes, only a medical powder can be used to prepare the Bar-VIPS suspension. It is the only registered drug of the barium sulfate in Russia, ”commented Dmitry Demchenko, a radiologist of the Elizabeth hospital. - With the controlled use of a medical barium at the time of the examination, it is almost impossible to obtain poisoning. “Bar Vips” is a hypoallergenic contrast drug, is not absorbed in the gastrointestinal tract and is excreted in a natural way. This maximally reduces the chances of causing an adverse reaction.

“When conducting an X -ray study, it is necessary to use exclusively medicinal barium sulfate, since it is water -legitimate,” explains the head of the clinical toxicology department of the ambulance named after Dzhanelidze, chief freelance specialist toxicologist of the Ministry of Health of the Russian Federation in the North-Western Federal District, metro station n. Alexey Lodyagin. - Barios - toxic substance. If we accept non -medical water -soluble barium, which, along with water, is absorbed into the blood and enters the body, then it will cause acute poisoning, very serious, which can lead to the burial of the esophagus, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, impaired heart rhythm and any other conduction, impaired sensitive and motor functions up to the development of paralysis.

The demon was bewildered

Evgeny Popov’s lawyers refuse to comment. Investigators believe that the defense vector has not yet been defined. However, before the arrest, January 27, the head physician of the KDC No. 1 managed to speak on the air of the St. Petersburg television channel: “We are shocked. These studies have been carried out since the start of the center ( since 1988. - N.P. ), and there have never been complications. At the moment, the studies are stopped, the investigation is dismantling. The used drug was sent for examination. The actions of doctors are checked. "

According to the investigation, those parties of the barium sulfate, during which people were injured and killed in KDC No. 1, the medical facility was purchased at Nevareactiv LLC in July and August 2021. Repeat:

The investigation concluded that this drug is not included in the state register of drugs and cannot be used in medicine because it is life -threatening.

“As far as I remember, KDC No. 1 has been buying bariums from us since 2011, if not earlier,” said Arkady Kamchatov, general director of Nevareactiv LLC. - But our products cannot be used for medical purposes. We do not supply pharmaceutors. We have only chemical reagents in our assortment: Barios with qualifications “h” (pure) and “Che” (pure for analyzes). This barium is not a sulfate for radioscopy. This is a chemical reagent for production and analytical purposes. It cannot be consumed inside. We do not understand how it happened that it was used in KDC No. 1. We do not find an answer.

The relatives of the dead ask and do not receive answers.

- Wherever we did not go, up to the president! - Victoria Andreeva, who spontaneously headed a group of victims in a criminal case, is suppressing. - Full -bastards that they did not even apologize to us. We have very serious questions to the Healthcare Committee and the Administration of St. Petersburg: how could industrial bariums with medical ones be confused when purchasing? Is there any monitoring system in urban healthcare? Reporting system? Are any random procurement checks in clinics? How often was this center specifically checked? Officials have not yet commented on an emergency of this scale.

On the call of “New”, First Deputy Chairman of the Health Committee of St. Petersburg, Andrei Saran, reacted concisely:

- I will not comment on any things on the phone. Contact the official request. There will be a request - we will answer. In the framework of what we know. Maybe the investigation knows something.

The official request from Novaya Gazeta was sent to the Health Committee the day before. There is no answer yet.

* Barium - chemical element of barium