Three frontline health care workers have mysteriously fallen out of hospital windows in Russia over the past two weeks, heightening public attention to the working conditions for doctors and medical professionals amid the coronavirus pandemic, reports CNN. Two of those health care workers are dead, and one remains hospitalised. All three incidents, which are being investigated by Russian law enforcement authorities, have prompted intense discussion in the Russian press and on social media.
Alexander Shulepov, an ambulance doctor in Voronezh, a city about 320 miles south of Moscow, is in serious condition after falling from a hospital window on Saturday. Local state television, citing regional health officials, said he fell out of second-floor window of the Novousmanskaya Hospital, where he worked and was receiving treatment after testing positive for coronavirus. Shulepov was hospitalised for coronavirus on 22 April, the same day he and his colleague Alexander Kosyakin posted a video online saying that Shulepov had been forced to continue working after testing positive for coronavirus.
The report says Kosyakin had previously criticised hospital administration for protective gear shortages on his social media and was questioned by the police for allegedly spreading fake news. The regional department of Russia's health ministry told CNN in a statement that Shulepov "is a victim of an accident due to his own lack of caution" and is receiving all necessary medical care.
The report says police have not responded to a request for comment.
Anastasia Vasilyeva, the head of Alliance of Doctors union, is quoted in the report as saying she did not think anyone was deliberately targeting doctors. The incidents, she said, likely reflect the stress doctors are under in an underfunded system during a pandemic. "This is really about the destruction of our health care system," said Vasilyeva, who has been a prominent critic of the government's approach to combating coronavirus. "A lot of clinics and hospitals have been closed … And, of course, this means it is very difficult to treat in such conditions a lot of patients with coronavirus."
[link url="https://edition.cnn.com/2020/05/04/europe/russia-medical-workers-windows-intl/index.html"]Full CNN report[/link]