Dangerous neighborhood: residents of the Moscow region opposed covid hospitals

Lyudmila Butuzova

On the one hand, they have become a kind of alternate airfields, on the other hand, this is a call that the situation with COVID-19 has seriously worsened and is causing new social collisions.

"Nightmare! - write to "Novye Izvestia" residents from the street. Michurin in Khimki. - We have a hospital for patients with a severe course of the coronavirus located in the building of an unfinished sports and recreation complex, 30 meters from our houses. This was not agreed with the residents, but we would never give our consent to a dangerous facility. In early November, we saw ambulances and corpse vehicles, we ourselves asked the builders who were completing the construction of the second wing of the sports complex, what was happening here. They said covid. Then they wrote an official request to the city administration - and it started. We were summoned for a personal meeting with the deputy head of the city, and on local television they began to post custom-made videos that this covid center was safe. But the hospital isn't even properly fenced off. Doctors in protective suits go outside, leave cigarette butts after smoke breaks, after 5 meters - the Snezhinka stadium, where children learn biathlon and major sports competitions are held, in the immediate vicinity of the Fakel Design Bureau of Rocket Engines. In accordance with the Decree of the Chief Sanitary Doctor of the Russian Federation, these facilities are prohibited from being adjacent to infectious diseases. We are seeking closure...

It is not only Khimki that is rebelling. Sports and entertainment centers in Lyubertsy, in Staraya Kupavna, in Podolsk have also been adapted to fit covid-centers ("kovidniks")... Complaints to supervisory authorities are everywhere. With all the understanding that the number of cases is growing and they need to be treated somewhere, people really fear that infectious diseases in densely populated areas can become a source of infection spread throughout the city.

- They sent complaints to the presidential administration (they forwarded it to the government of the Moscow region), to the General Prosecutor's Office (they sent it down to the Moscow region's prosecutor's office), the Rospotrebnadzor department (no response), the human rights ombudsman Moskalkova (no response), the WHO representative (they said they did not their competence). The last appeal to Zhirinovsky - (no answer), - told Novye Izvestia the head of the initiative group of residents of Khimki, lawyer Alexander Medvedev. - It feels like everything is paralyzed by this epidemic... The main thing now is beds, at any cost, the rest of the problems for later.

According to Medvedeva, the sports complex in Khimki was abandoned for seven years. They took on it at the end of the summer, when money for re-profiling appeared in the city budget. “The deputy head of Khimki told the residents at a personal reception that other objects were considered for re-profiling - a hotel in the Khimki industrial zone and an abandoned sanatorium in the suburbs, but it was cheaper to finish building the sports complex”, - the activist says indignantly. - These are his words. It turns out that the covid hospital under the windows of 200 families was planted out of "economy"? But there are also patients. People who were in the sports complex complained that there was nothing to say about the treatment there”.

In support of one of those caught in the covid hospital on the street. Michurina told "Ecoborona" that the sports and health center was completely unprepared to receive and treat patients. He himself was there from 12 to 14 November and barely managed to survive: there was a suffocating smell of plastic in the room, heat at 30 degrees without ventilation, cramped conditions and blinding light around the clock. There were almost no medicines and equipment, doctors did not come to patients for a long time, and there were serious power outages. According to the man, the elderly cried and fainted under such conditions. His condition worsened dramatically - the temperature rose to almost 40 degrees, and the oxygen saturation dropped from 92 to 82, which threatened with dire consequences. The patient was saved by the appearance of the head physician of the Khimki hospital, who arrived at the hospital with a check. He ordered to transport the man to a hospital on the Kurkinskoye highway.

"People, if you have your relatives, close ones or friends in that hospital, transfer them from there, there is hell... - the patient does not hide his emotions. - After recovering, I want to take a close look at the officials who organized this genocide".

The Governor of the Moscow Region, Andrey Vorobyov, also checked the work of the temporary hospital at the FOK in Khimki, and found nothing depressing. This is reported by the head of the region in his Telegram channel: “There are 354 infectious beds for patients with coronavirus, 18 of which are intensive care units. During the conversion work, all the necessary medical equipment and furniture, plumbing and shower cabins, an emergency call system for medical workers were installed".

On the same day, Vorobyov presented state awards to doctors. Thus, the head physician Vladislav Mirzonov received the honorary title "Honored Doctor of Russia". The awarded, as if especially for the ears of the residents of Khimki, disturbed by the neighborhood with covidarium, made a speech in response: “Our medical institutions are located in different parts of the city, also near houses. But since they are provided with all the necessary protective structures and filters, all the necessary restrictive measures are observed, they are not infectious".

Covid, of course, is able to work wonders if, before our very eyes, he turns the main Khimki long-term construction from a symbol of mismanagement into an example of medical sterility. But residents have not yet forgotten that in the summer of 2017, at the request of the Glavstroynadzor of the Moscow Region, an examination of the FOK building was carried out for possible operation. The results of the examination were not officially published, it was unofficially known that the experts were horrified by the state in which the already erected structure and its communications were at that time. In this regard, they even said that it is easier to demolish everything and build something new on the same place. Initially, the sports facility was planned to be commissioned at the end of 2013. By 2017, the long-term construction had already eaten 350 million rubles from the regional and city budgets, experienced dizzying prospects of cooperation with State Duma deputy Irina Rodnina, who promised to place the headquarters of the Moscow Region Figure Skating Federation in Khimki and agreed to assign her name to the sports facility - and how to take it down after that? We decided: let it stand until better times. In the fall of last year, 294 million rubles were allocated from the city budget for the completion of the sports complex, they did not manage to master it, this autumn they added another 84.6 million rubles. The total cost of the sports and recreation center, based on confirmed information alone, now exceeds the astronomical 728 million rubles.

However, literally the next day after the official decision on a sharp increase in funding for the sports facility, the head of the city Voloshin signed another decree - on the transfer of this sports complex to the Ministry of Health of the Moscow Region. And his deputy, Irina Tesleva, turned to the heads of commercial medical institutions with a request to help the hospital with the search for medical personnel.

- The fact that the sports complex was handed over to the Ministry of Health, of course, is not strange. In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, this is done throughout the country, - the head of the regional committee "Civil Control" Maria Gornaya, the author of a petition on the Internet against placing infectious diseases hospitals in unsuitable premises, shared with Novye Izvestia. - Most often, they do this from a hopeless situation associated with chronic lack of money. The authorities of the Moscow region have sufficient resources and could prepare additional hospital beds in the summer - on the basis of sanatoriums and closed as a result of optimization of "unprofitable" medical institutions. This was not done. I don’t know for what reasons... But to adapt an old hospital to covid is tens of millions, to equip a new one from scratch is hundreds of millions. Moreover, the newly opened hospitals in the exhibition centers began to be closed; on the eve of the second wave, medical equipment was removed from there and the covid beds were replaced with art exhibitions. And so it happened that the new outbreak caught the Moscow region as if by surprise - now everything that turns up under the arm is grabbing under infectious diseases hospitals, the costs of fighting the epidemic are growing exponentially.

“We open more and more beds every week in order to provide assistance. The treatment is now more perfect, ”Governor Andrei Vorobyov says on the air of 360, but instead of the gratitude that the authorities were counting on, they receive massive protests and suspicions that the fight against the epidemic in the Moscow region is becoming a successful business for officials and businessmen.

Examples before your eyes. The costs of the Moscow region budget for a temporary hospital for patients with COVID-19 in the Patriot Park approached 600 million rubles. It has risen in price by a third due to dismantling and subsequent restoration, found out one publication recognized in Russia as a foreign agent. Novye Izvestia rechecked the information according to official sources - through state purchases. The hospital in "Patriot" is run by the Odintsovo Clinical Hospital. It was she who entered into contracts for the device of an infirmary for patients with COVID-19 in exhibition pavilions owned by the Ministry of Defense. In total, 19 contracts for 440 million rubles went through state purchases (the purchase of 1,400 ordinary beds and 20 intensive care beds, the arrangement of engineering networks, the purchase of equipment, including a Somatom go. Up tomograph for 34.7 million rubles). The contractor for all contracts was the Department of Property of Special Projects of the Ministry of Defense (UISP). The deadline for the execution of contracts is June 30 "Patriot" started working earlier -7 May, the patients lying there still managed to complain about the drafts and cold in the huge hangars. However, in June, the pandemic began to decline, and the head physician of the Odintsovo hospital, Andrei Fadeev, announced that from July 1, Patriot could stop receiving patients, then dismantling of the equipment would begin, and the pavilions would be returned to the military.

And so it happened: in July, a contract was signed with the contractor to liquidate the hospital. For 47 million rubles, the UISP dismantled modular structures, removed the disinfection posts and took away the furniture. An interesting fact - just dismantling the beds and bedside tables cost 9 million rubles. However, in September, the number of COVID-19 cases in the Moscow region began to grow sharply, and already on October 6, the exhibition pavilions turned into chambers again. And the Odintsovo hospital on October 16 signed a new contract with the UISP: for the adjustment of power supply and other engineering networks, the installation of a pillar (reception department) of beds, cabinets and plates on the door (by the way, each of them costs 5730 rubles). The total cost of work is more than 96 million rubles. Thus, the Moscow Region authorities spent about 600 million ((440 + 47 + 96 million) on the reprofiling of the Patriot back and forth and back), but hospital goods had to be stored somewhere else, kept watch and spent on disinfection measures in At least 20-30 million were spent on this, the expenses were not officially spent. Now "Patriot" seems to be loaded to capacity (about 1400 beds). Patients again complain in the media about the cold and unsettled hangars, incompatible, as it seems to them, with expenses of the Moscow region budget for a clinic of the 21st century.

Somersault with dragging beds also occurred at Crocus Expo, owned by billionaire Araz Agalarov. Alteration of the exhibition pavilion into a hospital for 1,040 beds and the rent of this pavilion in May-July cost the budget 766 million rubles, which also included payment for dismantling. In July, the hospital was closed; in October, the Moscow Region authorities announced that Crocus Expo would again treat COVID-19 patients, but now not in the exhibition complex, but in the hostel for workers belonging to it. In open sources, it was not possible to find information on how much the conversion of the hostel into a hospital would cost.

A scandal is brewing with the My Mall shopping center in the Ramensk District, where the largest infectious diseases hospital in the region opened in mid-November. On four floors there are 17 infectious diseases departments, intensive care unit and an emergency room. There is also a laboratory that allows you to carry out a full range of necessary analyzes. There is a morgue in the basement. The building belongs to a private entrepreneur, who for several years did not have enough funds for completion. “Covid was used the situation to put a businessman on the tail of the Ministry of Health and at the expense of the state to solve his financial problems,” residents write in a local public. Whether it is true or not, the building was miraculously completed and decorated in two weeks in a miraculous manner, ventilation and fire safety were arranged, according to the foreman, “taking into account the inadmissibility of what was in the Winter Cherry. It is evident that after the epidemic, the entrepreneur intends to immediately deploy commerce in the hospital. So far, nothing is known about the fate of the budget funds spent on "temporary" medicine.

Residents are indignant. But on a completely different occasion. The petition, addressed to the President, is entitled "We must not allow the conversion of the shopping center" My Mall "in Ostrovets into a covid hospital !!" Several thousand signatures and the same number of photocopies of the decision of the Chief Sanitary Doctor on the inadmissibility of placing infectious medical institutions at a distance of less than 100 meters from the residential area. In the village of Ostrovtsy to "Mall" 50 meters. The house on Podmoskovnaya, 37 is even closer, from there cries of despair: “I am afraid for the life and health of my loved ones and neighbors. The child goes to the kindergarten, which is located right next to the shopping center".

An employee of the Interdistrict Prosecutor's Office Viktor Andreevich (he asked not to name his real name), whom the Prosecutor General's Office instructed to respond to the residents' complaint, shared his feelings with “NI”: “I don’t know what to report ... I live nearby, three children ... Mall "" in the covid center, neighbors came to me: join the protest, even the officials in Africa opposed the construction of a hospital in a residential area. I have heard this story ... The protesters destroyed the construction site. I sympathize with people. But, firstly, we are not in Africa ... Secondly, when you (or your very close relatives) suffocate from this disease, and there are no places in the hospital, I think that everyone will be much less worried about these hundred meters to the covid hospital. The people who make decisions understand this and prepare for the worst. Apparently, until the new year, an improvement in indicators is not expected and the number of cases will grow, if not in a straight line, but exponentially for sure. Meetings cannot cope with this. I do what is supposed to and what depends on me personally - supervision of the sanitary condition, constant contact with the medical staff..."

According to him, the building of the shopping center received a positive conclusion from the Glavstroynadzor on the compliance of the project documentation with technical regulations, sanitary and epidemiological standards and requirements in the field of environmental protection. Based on the submitted documents, the Ministry of Housing Policy issued a permit to commission the facility. The organization of the hospital is entrusted to the new acting. Chief physician of the Ramensk Central Regional Hospital Arkady Kogan, who has extensive experience in deploying large-scale covid centers: in the spring he headed the work of a hospital with 1,500 beds at the Crocus Expo exhibition center, after that he headed the infectious diseases hospital in Bronnitsy.

Maria Arkhipova , Chairperson of the Russian Bar Association for Human Rights, commented on the situation:

- I believe that the demands of residents to the authorities to observe sanitary standards and take care of the welfare of the population are fully justified and legal. Obviously, a covid hospital should at least be fenced off from residents, patients who happened to be there should not be the object of observation by unauthorized persons, since this is a matter of medical secrecy and medical ethics. The fact that there is now a pandemic and urgent measures are required to hospitalize patients is a fact. However, this does not mean that the actions of the authorities should remain outside public scrutiny and legal assessment.

The principle "covid will write off everything" was invented by selfish and indifferent officials. We will have a chance to call to account all those who "did not look, did not take into account, did not calculate", now the main thing is to protect ourselves and survive the epidemic without losses. Do not absolve yourself of responsibility for this - suppress the activities of mentally ill persons spreading misinformation about the absence of covid. Currently, this has not been done at the federal level, citizens carelessly ignore sanitary standards, continue to walk without masks, flaunt their "invulnerability". What this leads to, we all see. So take care of yourself and do not rely on chance or for the help of a "good uncle".