20 suspects appeared in the case of mass death of patients in Vladikavkaz

According to Kommersant , citing a law enforcement source, after the death of the patients, the Investigative Committee opened a criminal case on the performance of work or the provision of services that did not meet safety requirements (part 3 of Article 238 of the Criminal Code). As part of the investigation of the case, the chief doctor of the hospital, Vladimir Pliev, was detained.

"Acting head of North Ossetia Sergei Menyailo said that the cause of the accident could have been constructive errors during the installation of the pipe", - notes the Dozhd TV channel.

Now this version is being checked by Rostekhnadzor. The experts will have to establish whether the head physician was aware of the problems with oxygen equipment in his institution.

An emergency at the Vladikavkaz emergency hospital occurred on August 9. As a result of the pipe break, oxygen stopped flowing to the intensive care unit. There were over 70 patients, including 13 people who were connected to artificial lung ventilation devices.

It took about 40 minutes to eliminate the accident. During this time, nine patients, aged 47 to 85, died. Then two more patients died. In one of them, the cause of death was thromboembolism; in the second, the results of postmortem forensic examination are not yet ready.

The hospital where the emergency occurred was providing assistance to patients with COVID-19. When the accident occurred, patients from intensive care were urgently transferred to other departments. For the sake of the speedy transportation of seriously ill patients to the “red zone”, the patients' relatives were allowed to help the doctors to transport their loved ones to other departments.

At the time of the emergency, there were 651 people in the hospital, 308 people with confirmed COVID-19, 67 in intensive care, 13 people were connected to the ventilator. By August 10, 452 people remained in the hospital, 72 of them were in intensive care.