Belarusian Doctor: Piles Of Corpses Were Lying On Floor In Hospital Morgue

During the first wave of COVID-19, Vitsebsk was "on fire"; now Hrodna and Brest may "flare up".

The doctor of a regional Belarusian hospital, working in the "red zone," told Charter97.org about the real situation with COVID-19 in Belarus, about the sentiments among doctors and urged Belarusians to stay at home and get vaccinated.

- How would you characterize the current situation with COVID-19 in Belarus? What point are we at?

- In short, the situation is critical. Right now it's very difficult. We are at a point where the COVID-19 epidemic in Belarus meets another factor - seasonal diseases. Flu, colds, other acute respiratory infections - this acts as a catalyst for the morbidity.

To spell out, last year we entered the fall and winter season with a relative "collective immunity".

The COVID-19 epidemic began in the spring of 2020, and by the fall we had a huge number of people who had gone through the disease. It is clear that all of that involved a huge number of deaths and it was a terrible way to go and it should be condemned. But the fact remains that last year's ARVI season was relatively easy, thanks to our collective immunity.

What was needed next was mass vaccination. The way it was done in other countries. As it turned out, people got sick in 2020, got some immunity, which evaporated in six months, and then the Belarusians started getting sick for the second and some - for the third time. Plus, the "delta" strain appeared, which is much more contagious than the so-called "Chinese" strain.

The time that should have been spent on vaccination was wasted. If we had done this in the spring and summer of this year, the community would have immunity by now.

- Let's not go far afield. Tell me, what's going on in your hospital?

- Ten to 15 deaths a day. For regional hospitals, I think that's an average figure. In Minsk, as far as I know from my colleagues, the situation is much worse.

Almost everyone who dies before the age of 70 is registered as "dead from pneumonia". If a person is elderly, he has many related diseases - problems with the heart, lungs, etc. The statistics are falsified on the spot.

- What is the record number of deaths in your hospital?

- More than 15 deaths. I can't say exactly, but I saw piles of bodies in sacks lying on the floor in the hospital morgue. You can never forget something like that.

The tragedy of our situation is not in the numbers. I don't want to be misunderstood, because behind every number in the mortality column is someone's life. The tragedy is that many deaths could have been avoided.

The simplest example is the lack of oxygen. Sometimes there are cases when you don't have it physically and you won't have it for the time, which becomes critical for a person.

Secondly, the logistics. They could give this ice palace in Minsk to the sick. Why should everyone be crowding in the narrow corridors of hospitals? I understand that this is a big image blow, saying that a huge number of people are sick. It's a bad image, maybe panic would have started somewhere. However, it would be possible to avoid crowds, to free up space in hospitals for routine medical examinations and operations, and to increase the number of beds, which would mean that the seriously ill would not have to be sent home (read - to die).

There are thousands of such unnecessary deaths, which could have been simply avoided, nationwide. Those lives are on the conscience of the Ministry of Health.

- Let us return to vaccination. Why did the authorities fail in this process?

- They didn't. It was among the authorities, I think, that the process was quite successful. The medical commission worked very well, according to rumors, even Lukashenka, who defiantly enters the "red zone" without a mask, got a shot of the Western vaccine.

When it comes to ordinary people, it is the medical illiteracy encouraged by the regime. There is a huge number of Belarusians who believe in "chipping" and "world conspiracy of reptiloids and Bill Gates». However, it is the authorities' sacred duty to educate, not to add fuel to the flames with stories about "goats", "tractor" and "vodka".

There is also a large group of people who would have been vaccinated, but they do not trust the Russian drug "Sputnik". My personal opinion is that the vaccine is not bad, I have not seen people who got vaccinated with this drug on life support. However, a person should have a choice: Sputnik, Pfizer, Astrazeneca, Moderna and so on down the list.

- As the regime continues to ignore the disaster in the country, what should Belarusians do?

- First of all, get vaccinated. I will repeat myself, but in the list of those who died in my hospital, there is not a single person who was vaccinated. You can take various views on Russian and Chinese vaccines, but we do not have any better ones.

The second point - don't spread the disease. Let's save ourselves, if possible, stay at home. Take a vacation, stay in the smallest circle of loved ones, don't visit anyone. The situation is very, very tense, there is a danger that things will be even worse.

Don't go to these shopping malls, which are now full of "tourists" from the Middle East. They may be carriers of Asian strains of COVID-19. Let's be prudent to protect ourselves and our loved ones.

- So does that mean the country needs a lockdown?

- A lockdown in the full sense of the word. People should stay at home to break the chains of virus transmission, and the borders of the country should be closed.

This year, most Belarusians didn't have a chance to rest in countries from where they could have brought the delta strain. Most likely, it got into the country with the migrants from the Middle East and Africa. I am not sure if they are being tested for COVID-19 upon arrival from abroad. The camp that is formed on the Polish border is the perfect place for a huge hotbed of the epidemic. And these people will carry the virus to Belarusian cities when they fail to storm the border. We have to be prepared for that. Vitsebsk was "on fire" during the first wave of COVID-19, now Hrodna and Brest can "flare up".

- Everyone notes that the Belarusian health care system is facing a shortage of personnel before the new wave of the epidemic. Do you notice it at the local level?

- Undoubtedly. And here again I can speak about the deaths, which could have been avoided. Sometimes the doctor on duty is just physically unable to see that a person has felt worse, as there are dozens of them. A delay of 15-20 minutes with oxygen, with some emergency treatment - and there's another death.

The outflow of personnel has affected, so to say, the medical elite, which is in great demand in Western countries, as well as the lower ranks. A nurse or a paramedic can do her job in Poland or Lithuania, and they will be paid several times more.

Mid-level medics are still holding on, but I think it's just a matter of time.

- How would you comment on Lukashenka's proposal to have a ten-year obligatory working period after the medical university? Would it help to keep doctors in the country?

- It would lead to the situation when talented applicants to medical schools would add Polish, Lithuanian, German or English to their studies in chemistry and biology. The outflow of applicants will lower the bar for entering universities. After a while, Belarusians will be treated by those who study in medical colleges today.

- Are Belarusian medics today a protesting part of the society?

- You can say that they are among the most protesting ones. Since the spring of 2020, we have been facing the utter cretinism of the current authorities. I cannot find another word for it, even though I am not a psychiatrist.

Doctors have a certain opinion of themselves and their professional as well as mental abilities. A man spends a serious part of his life studying, practicing, constantly trying to keep abreast of what's going on in medicine. And then some lunatic starts handing out advice about treating cancer with the coronavirus. This is just an urban lunatic, who should have been put in a straitjacket a long time ago.

It's even more frustrating when you see our colleagues from the Ministry of Health, who "snap a salute" to utterly idiotic statements and put them into action. The same example with the "treatment of cancer" - in the evening there was a news item on state TV saying that the number of cancer patients had actually decreased. This is the ultimate cynicism, because many of these people are now buried in the graveyard, and some will end up there, because hospitals are full and some people are simply not diagnosed with cancer in time.

To make a long story short, the Belarusian doctors violate the Hippocratic oath only in one case: when they see the mad old geezer without a mask in the "red zone" and say in unison: "plague take him!"

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