He was mourned over, a funeral service was completed, he was covered with earth... And suddenly a call - your grandfather is alive!
Julia Suntsova
The granddaughter of the "resurrected" grandfather Varvara Korchashkin told the new nightmare of Pushkin's undertaker on her Facebook page.
The story begins on May 12, 2021. At about 4.30 pm, her mother called her and said that her grandfather felt bad and asked to urgently call an ambulance. Suspected stroke. 79-year-old Grigory Mikhailovich Vasiliyev and his wife lived in the village of Goluboe, Solnechnogorsk District, Moscow Region. The ambulance made its way to the patient for about forty minutes.
- When I arrived at my grandparents, at about 4:45 pm, my grandfather was still walking, but his right hand was not working well and his speech was impaired.
The paramedic of the ambulance suspected a stroke, gave a pill to relieve blood pressure and said that he needed to go to hospital, - says Varvara.
My grandfather was admitted to the Solnechnogorsk Regional Hospital (Moscow Region).
In the hospital, after the CT scan, the diagnosis was confirmed: a stroke. Doctors took a long time to decide where to assign the patient.
- We spent an hour and a half there before they took him to the intensive care unit. Since we have covid everywhere, my mother was given documents to sign: due to the difficult epidemiological situation, visits are prohibited, all information can be found by phone, and in an emergency, the mother will be contacted themselves.
A day later, from the intensive care unit, Grigory Mikhailovich was transferred to the intensive care unit for patients with acute cerebrovascular accident (CVA).
On May 13, relatives were told by phone: "This is the state of moderate severity, but stable, speech is impaired, the right hand almost does not move." In the next three days - Friday, Saturday and Sunday, the relatives were told that everything was unchanged, the necessary treatment was being provided in full and properly.
May 17, Monday - early morning bell at the apartment.
- 6:55 am. I woke up from the heart-rending screams of my mother, she came running to me in hysterics: "Varya, dad is dead, dad doesn't exist anymore!". Further, being in complete shock, distraught with grief, we learn that grandfather died on May 16 at 17:45, but for some reason we called my mother only early in the morning of May 17. For the next couple of hours we waited for my mother's brother to go together to tell my grandmother that my grandfather had passed away.
On the same Monday, in the Solnechnogorsk regional hospital, relatives were given a death certificate, and in the Zelenograd branch of the MFC - a death certificate.
In the hospital, where the death was pronounced, they searched for the deceased's things for a long time, but they did not find him, they did not offer to carry out an identification either. All because of the difficult situation with the covid.
Only the date of issue of the body was appointed - Wednesday, May 19.
The next two days, the family was busy with the upcoming funeral. Cemetery contract. A package of documents for burial. Organization of funeral services and commemoration. Farewell party invitations. For two days everyone was grief-stricken, they could not believe that grandfather was no more.
On the appointed day at 12.30, the daughter, son-in-law and grandson of the deceased went to the morgue to collect the body.
- When mom, dad and brother saw the body, they unanimously said: "This is not him". The pathologist was called. He unfolded all the tags and documents, from all it followed that it was Vasiliyev Grigory Mikhailovich. The pathologist began to explain that after death, especially after a stroke and craniotomy, a person changes a lot...
The expert was so convincing that the relatives did not leave a stone unturned.
The procession with the coffin moved to the funeral service in the church of the city of Dolgoprudny.
All thirty invited - relatives and friends, who came up to the head of the bed to say goodbye to the deceased, were no less surprised: they didn’t look alike. But... there is something in common, rare features, maybe death changes faces, in general, somehow they resigned themselves to their vague glimpses of intuition.
The lid of the coffin dropped. From the church the procession moved to the cemetery. My grandfather was buried in the family plot. After that everyone went to the memorial service in Zelenograd.
- May 21, Friday. At about 13:00 my mother calls me and asks me to sit down before continuing the conversation. At first I thought if someone else had died. Mom says that she just got a call from the Solnechnogorsk hospital and said: “Your father is alive”, continues Varvara.
To say that everyone was speechless is to say nothing. Mom, of course, first of all asked the caller if it was funny, since it was not funny at all. To which she was told that an error had occurred...
After some explanations from the representatives of the hospital, surprising things emerged.
Grandfather Vasiliyev Grigory Mikhailovich lay in the same room with another man. Both are recumbent, both with a stroke, about the same age and in some ways had an external similarity. Both hardly spoke and heard poorly.
According to the employees of the Solnechnogorsk hospital, the nurse on duty at the weekend changed their places on the beds and did not transfer them to the watch.
Soon the second man died, and it happened on the bed, which was listed for another old man.
Further events developed rapidly. We have already told about the first old man.
But for the second family, the "film" was no less action-packed.
Relatives, whose grandfather actually died, were called and asked to come to pick them up with the wording "the treatment is over".
When someone else's grandfather was taken out in a gurney, they, of course, said that grandfather was not theirs.
At first, the hospital staff began to threaten them with the prosecutor's office, saying that you don’t want to take your relative.
The grandfather himself is silent after a stroke...
After the squabble, the administration had to sit down and sort it out thoroughly, and the hair stood on end: firstly, they gave out the wrong person, and secondly, they practically “buried” the living.
"What would happen if that second grandfather suddenly had no relatives? It's scary to imagine. We wouldn't even know that we buried the wrong person and that our grandfather was alive.
The hospital doctor sent a photo - we saw our poor grandfather, unshaven, lying on a pillow. We immediately packed up and went to the hospital. Here, of course, we already had a “green light” everywhere, they even let us into the ward, despite the covid. Before our arrival, grandfather was shaved, washed, transferred to the hotel room. I was especially amused by the toothpaste with a brush in the bathroom and apples on the table, despite the fact that the grandfather himself cannot walk especially and half of his mouth is immobilized".
Gennady Aleksikov, the head of the neurology department for patients with acute cerebrovascular accidents, promised all sorts of "bonuses": let grandfather stay in the hospital as long as it takes, even if much longer than required by the compulsory medical insurance, and they take care of rehabilitation. He earnestly asked his relatives "not to worry". At the same time, there is no rehabilitation department in the hospital - this, according to relatives, was later confessed by the doctor on duty.
Exactly from that moment on, grandfather's life reached a new level, the relatives say. Meeting face to face with a soulless, inhuman bureaucracy.
From the documents of the grandfather - only the death certificate. Everywhere he is listed as dead. In fact, this means that at this stage it cannot be released from a medical institution and cannot be arranged for rehabilitation in a new one.
"Of course, I have a question: how could it have happened that neither the attending physician, nor the head of the department within 5 days (after the death of that second man) did not understand that they had the wrong patient?! The only thing that comes to my mind is that they either confused them in the intensive care unit, or they do not approach patients at all, or they do not always understand who is being treated".
On Monday, May 24, the relatives went to the Zelenograd Prosecutor's Office to push forward the application for the restoration of the grandfather in his rights and to quickly pick him up from the hospital, which once already prematurely "buried" him.
"We must pay tribute to the prosecutor Vladimir Rodin - he spent 3 hours with us, called whoever he could, tried to help. But the grandfather is deceased everywhere. The return transition to the living - only through the court. And since no one from those we go to now has ever encountered with such a case, even an agent in a cemetery who has been working there for 20 years has become obsessed with history, no one knows how to be in such a situation, what are the regulations, it’s just not. Plus, everything is complicated by the fact that the grandfather cannot come to court himself, since he hardly walks or speaks".
Relatives have found out that either the person who was wrongly recognized as dead, or a medical institution, or the prosecutor can file a lawsuit for restoration from the dead. After such an "error", there is no desire to contact the hospital once again, the family explains, only the prosecutor remains.
The trial itself may last for more than one month, but due to the difficult epidemiological situation (again), the time frame for the consideration of the case generally spreads into a "fog". But right now, a grandfather, a patient with a stroke, urgently needs rehabilitation. The quality of rehabilitation in the first weeks, in the first months, dictate the chances of recovery for the rest of your life.
"On May 26, my mother went to the Solnechnogorsk regional hospital to visit my father, to hand over personal hygiene items and the necessary care products. At the entrance to the medical facility, our pass was rudely withdrawn by the head physician, and there was no apology for the incident".
The administration behaved inappropriately, the representatives of the hospital raised their voices. The strictest limits were introduced on passes: one person for one graying, strictly from 16.00 to 18.00 hours. At that time, it was not possible to find out what state the grandfather was in, says Varvara.
The rehabilitation promised from May 21 began only on May 27, when the rehabilitation doctor returned from a business trip (this information was provided by the doctor himself).
On May 31, the family outlined the situation in statements to the Prosecutor General's Office, the Ombudsman for Human Rights in the Russian Federation and the Moscow Region, to Roszdravnadzor, and the Governor of the Moscow Region. In an appeal to the SU of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation for the Moscow Region, the relatives asked to conduct a procedural check against the officials of the Solnechnogorsk Regional Hospital and, if their guilt was established, to prosecute for negligence, which entailed serious consequences.
In addition to the hassle of restoring grandfather's rights, big problems lined up around the procedure for exhuming the body in the family burial at the Dolgoprudninskoye cemetery.
It turns out that the application for exhumation must be submitted by the hospital itself, whose former patient was not properly buried.
On May 27, the family turned to the head physician Larisa Borisova with a request to initiate the exhumation of the deceased's body, which was mistakenly given instead of the living grandfather.
"While my mother was there and wrote this statement, the hospital lawyer sounded the phrase: “Why would you get him out of there? Well, he lies and let him lie there". On the part of the relatives of the deceased, there are no movements at all, and it seems that they are not planning to take the body.
On May 31, at the request of the head physician, the head of the department of neurology for patients with acute cerebrovascular accidents called my mother, advised me to meet with the relatives of the deceased and somehow decide everything among themselves. We assume that the hospital itself has not submitted an application for exhumation anywhere, and is trying to close this uncomfortable issue with our hands, - says Varvara.
Now relatives visit their grandfather every day, and his condition upsets them. There is no progress, the issue of good rehabilitation is very acute, they comment.
On May 21, the family was informed that all those responsible for the ridiculous incident were allegedly fired, and the department was dismissed. “But for the next 11 days, everyone was sitting in the same places, which suggests that someone was fired only in words”, - says the granddaughter.
The main thing for the relatives now is to speed up the return of grandfather from the “world of the dead” to the “world of the living”, to obtain new documents, and begin full-fledged rehabilitation. But which of the dozens of bypassed offices will issue a magic visa "urgently!" they do not know.