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To the hospital with brass knuckles: attacks on doctors continue
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.by Nadezhda Durova [REGNUM] On June 16, several aggressive men beat up a traumatologist at the regional clinical hospital No. 2 in Tyumen. The reason for the attack on the doctor was his refusal to immediately see a certain respected aksakal, who came accompanied by relatives. According to Wikipedia: Aqsaqal or aksakal (literally meaning "white beard" in Kipchak languages) metaphorically refers to the male elders, the old and wise of the community in parts of Central Asia, the Caucasus and Bashkortostan. Traditionally, an aqsaqal was the leader of a village or aul until the Soviet times. Tyumen is a city in central Russia, in Siberia. At that time, another patient was bleeding in the office, but his health was of no importance to the attackers. In addition to the traumatologist, several other doctors and patients who came to the doctor's aid were injured. THEY TRAMPLED ON US HERE! The beaten medic, 33-year-old Ruslan Tolemishov, was hospitalized — he has multiple bruises, abrasions, and a suspected concussion. Tyumen residents sympathize with the doctor and are indignant: hospital staff are already working themselves to the point of exhaustion, and the loss of an experienced traumatologist means that they will have to wait longer for help. According to patients who took part in the brawl, the attackers were quite drunk. The video from the surveillance cameras shows that there were girls among the hooligans - however, they did not fight themselves, but only tried to stop the fight. But they did not succeed. The Tyumen attack is not an isolated incident. Just six months ago in Rostov, an aggressive patient almost killed a doctor. Abvel Avakyan tore a metal rod from a bed, hit the doctor with it at least 15 times, then broke the glass with the same rod and cut the victim's neck with it. The guard arrived in time - the doctor was saved. But Irkutsk ambulance paramedic Alexander Pechelatov was not saved. The drunk 53-year-old patient, who was being transported to the hospital from the territory of the shift camp, stabbed the paramedic in the chest. He later explained that he "just wanted to ride next to the driver, but he was not allowed." Often, complaints against medical workers are that they enter an apartment without shoe covers: in Vladivostok, doctors were beaten for refusing to put on shoe covers when entering an apartment, and in Barnaul, a patient, using foul language, demanded that medical workers wash the floors in his apartment because they had “trampled and brought in germs.” At the end of 2022, the Russian Ministry of Health created a special working group “on issues of reducing the risks of violence against medical workers in the performance of their official duties.” Monitoring of cases of aggression is carried out according to three parameters: mental violence, physical violence, and other types of violent actions, which include shouting and insults, snatching objects from hands or damaging property, and other actions with signs of obvious disrespect. According to the Ministry of Health, more than 1,700 attacks on health workers were committed in the country in 2023. The most aggressive regions were Omsk Oblast, St. Petersburg, Moscow, Kemerovo and Saratov Oblasts. The medical community has repeatedly drawn the attention of legislators to the problem of violence against doctors. In 2019, amendments were made to the Criminal Code and the Code of Administrative Offenses (the rules of conduct for citizens in medical organizations were defined, a fine for obstructing the provision of medical care was approved). In 2021, the Civil Code confirmed the right of doctors to protect their honor and business reputation in court. Today, ambulance crews are equipped with panic buttons, and hospital corridors and clinic offices are equipped with video cameras. But the doctors themselves are quite determined. — Three things need to be done: put ambulance doctors on cameras, like they did for police officers, so that no one can say that "the doctor started it." Create a blacklist of those who attacked or threatened doctors, so that they cannot call a doctor to their home, but only come to the clinic in person, — says Evgeniya Komarova, an ambulance paramedic and a blogger with 200,000 followers, to Regnum. — And, of course, increase fines — not one and a half to two thousand, but 150-200, and a real prison term. Once they show it on TV for the whole country, all these troublemakers will be wary of raising their hands. SERVICE VS. MAINTENANCE Emergency physician, writer, author of the books “While the Ambulance is Driving,” “Ambulance,” and “What Doctors Talk About” Andrey Zvonkov believes that the root of evil is in the attitude toward medicine as a service sector. Attacks are most often motivated by two reasons — seeking some kind of benefit or hostility. A person has something negative towards health workers: for example, one pensioner beat a therapist with a stick because he did not prescribe him a medicine. Then it turned out that it was another doctor who replaced the first one. How should such a situation be interpreted? As general hostility, not personal, A. Zvonkov tells IA Regnum. It happens that doctors are threatened with a weapon with a demand, for example, “urgently hospitalize mom.” Or “revive her,” or something else. The behavior is dangerous, inadequate, the motive is clear. And faith in the omnipotence of doctors, who supposedly “can,” but “don’t want to.” And that means they need to be forced. Zvonkov also recalls that doctors were beaten during the ambulance robbery: the doctor’s kit contains narcotic analgesics for pain relief in case of injuries, heart attacks, and severe pain situations. For example, I worked in the emergency room without any narcotics at all. Apart from Relanium and Baralgin — no painkillers. Ketanov, Ketorol — they didn’t give us anything else. But in the ambulance service in the 90s there was promedol, morphine in five ampoules, and it was dangerous to work with such an arsenal: gangs of drug addicts attacked ambulances specifically with the purpose of taking away drugs. The management had different opinions on this matter: some said “stand to the death”, others “give it up, life is more important”. But in general, Andrei Zvonkov believes, the problem lies in the attitude towards medicine as a service sector, like a dry cleaner or a vegetable stand. Remember that notorious story with shoe covers? Thank God, the Ministry of Health issued an order that not only ambulances are not required to have shoe covers, they have no right to, so to speak, change shoes at all on a call, because their task is to provide emergency medical care, not to monitor the cleanliness of other people's apartments. This is the lot of the owners who called a team to help them. The essence of the problem is that doctors provide assistance, not services. And this fact must be conveyed to the population, just as the status of teachers must be reviewed: they, too, should not be perceived as service personnel. Each of us will sooner or later be forced to see a doctor. And everyone should understand - using examples from criminal proceedings - how a row in a doctor's office or a blow to a paramedic can end. Who came to save you. Posted by: badanov 2025-06-21 |
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