Dr. Uladzimir Martau on Interruptions in Oxygen Supply: Every Time, It Is a Tragedy

The main problems in medicine are not being solved.

Uladzimir Martau is a man who was one of the first to announce problems with oxygen without hiding his face, name, or scale of the problem. In his LiveJournal, he writes about the situation with COVID-19 in Belarus:

- In March 2021, I made public the situation when an interruption in the supply of oxygen in my Vitsebsk emergency hospital led to dire consequences. I was fired. The deputy minister (a nice person, but "he was forced" apparently) made a policy statement: "Oxygen is not important."

Since then, I have received signals that interruptions in the supply of oxygen in hospitals in Belarus are more a norm than an accident. Each time, it is a tragedy, even if it is 2 people, even when it is 6 people or more.

But in addition to the fact that specific patients die, the particular horror is in the discouragement of the medical staff, in the disappearance of the very "drive" that can save that unique person, who should have died "according to the laws of medicine." And that drive is what makes medicine medicine.

A critical patient who survives gives the profession a meaning to be proud of. And if "they all die anyway" - in this case, we just go to work and get paid monthly and within the framework of the Labor Law. People become medical clerks instead of paramedics.

Meanwhile, interruptions in oxygen supply have become perhaps the most important news from hospitals where covid is treated. The slogans "Oxygen is not important" and "Nobody died, you will not prove anything" are not declared because of a good life...

Not even a shortage of ventilators, not even a shortage of places in hospitals, not even a shortage of oxygen points for patients ... - A patient who gets to the hospital, who has received a coveted place at the oxygen supply point, may just one day lose...

... everything else...

***

And we are running out of oxygen here and there. I am a doctor, and I do not understand why is it so hard to solve technical problems? This is not a nuclear power plant and not a flight to the moon! - This is a simple physics problem with volume, pressure, pipe cross-sectional area, etc. A year was given to solve this problem.

Nothing has been solved. Nothing is being solved. There is not even a task to solve anything. I watched the stream from Ukraine: the doctors are happy that they were also invited to a conversation "at the top." Because "their governors" report "to the top" that everything is fine and there are no problems with oxygen. The governors also "order to be silent" to the Ukrainian doctors. And the doctors "started talking."

And this is Ukraine. This is not Belarus.

But both there and there, it is important to be "a person of the System."

***

Technical problems are solved technically. Without solving the problem, it cannot be solved. What can be easier than throwing all your efforts into solving a simple technical problem? After all, it is not a lack of oxygen as such but interruptions in the supply of it, a completely disorganized state of technical personnel, is a discrepancy between the tasks assigned to the medical staff and the technical capabilities of hospital systems. The problem is that all these problems are not resolved ahead of time (this is the main thing!).

... So bring it in line!

No!

***

Many years ago, I had a conflict with the then organizers of health care. They surprised me with their logic: if you run out of consumables for the "bourgeois" equipment, then you should not tell anyone, keep silent, and bury the patient "quietly." This is "patriotism."

But if you raise the question of finding these same consumables - you are an enemy and a "foreign agent."

Patriots rule.