Cancer can't wait! Ministry of Health officials left cancer patients without the medical assistance

Lyudmila Butuzova

In late March, the Ministry of Health asked metropolitan and regional hospitals to estimate how many patients with coronavirus they can accept. They were given five days on the perestroika plan. Thousands of people were sent home from hospitals, leaving only seriously ill patients. Redesigned clinics do not accept new patients not with coronavirus. But Russians, even in the midst of an epidemic, continue to get sick with their “old” diseases. Diagnoses - including oncological, i.e. extremely life-threatening - no one canceled them ...

That's just nowhere to turn to for medical help. Cancer patients are asked to wait until the epidemiological situation improves and patients with a “crown” free their beds. Not everyone can wait for hospitalization. In the country, and before the epidemic, oncology killed a thousand people a day. Now the situation is even ruthless - the state simply abandoned them to die at home.

“At the moment, my mother is lying on the couch and ... dying! In the literal sense of the word. And not from the world famous coronavirus. Although in moments of despair, I think it would be better, at least you know what is happening. - Talks about the family tragedy in the FB and seeks help from the Russian Ministry of Health Marina Volkova

Mom dies from an aggressive disease - acute lymphoblastic leukemia (blood cancer). She needs urgent hospitalization in a specialized clinic in order to start anti-relapse therapy. But EVERYWHERE is REFUSED TO HOSPITALIZATION. I have official permission for urgent hospitalization at the mother’s place of residence, but the head of the hematology department, by “spiritual kindness”, sent us home, with the words “If you live until May 6, maybe we'll take you to the department”. Thanks, cap, we will try.

I'm old enough to understand what relapse is. I don’t build castles in the air, I don’t eat a rainbow. I can still read. In one interview there, with some head doctor there, I read that those who can be saved will be saved, and those who are already illiquid will be sent home on the sofa, to die, in their own walls it’s best to do this as is the case with my mom. “Thank you” to the paramedics from the oncology dispenser of the Korolyovskaya City Hospital, Yubileiny branch, for giving my mother a free one-way ticket (to the hospice), with the words “Just in case. This is the only way we can help you. ” May God grant you and your loved ones health!

And now first:

- 2.5 years ago, my mother was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia. Mom was treated at one of the best hematology centers in the country. Thank you for being at the right time with friends who extended a helping hand to my family. If it weren’t for them, I don’t know where my mom would be now, probably in the same place as my dad, only a year earlier. Doctors achieved a remission that lasted 2 years. Mom refused bone marrow transplantation at the beginning of treatment. In December 2019, there was a relapse at the molecular level. Doctors again reached remission. 2 weeks ago there was a complete relapse. On April 18, we received a blood test that informed us of the presence of blasts. Mom needs to have a bone marrow puncture in order to URGENTLY start anti-relapse therapy. But there is one BUT! WE CAN'T NOTHING ANYTHING, since all the doors in front of us are closed.

In Moscow we were denied urgent hospitalization due to quarantine, in the Moscow region we were denied urgent hospitalization due to quarantine, in Vladimir we were denied urgent hospitalization due to quarantine, in the Vladimir region we were not only denied urgent hospitalization, but Mom was thrown out into the street, fearing that she had COVID, since Mom had a temperature of 39-40 for 2 weeks, lymph nodes in the armpits were inflamed, and there was a focus of inflammation in the lungs. 2 tests for COVID negative. Respiratory failure is absent. For 2 weeks, we tried by all means available to us to transport mom to any clinic: at the place of residence, for money, for sweets, in Israel (after all, our vast country does not accept us). But all in vain.

In our country there is no place for ordinary mortals. All the forces, resources and budget of our great country, in which “everything is for people”, are thrown to save COVID infected people, and we even manage to help other countries by sending them ventilation machines. In our country, after all, these patients have enough of these devices. And now the question is, I can only ask: what to do for those who have oncology, and not COVID? What to do for those who need URGENT MEDICAL CARE?

Can I unload my mother in the subway, let her ride until she picks up the coronavirus so that the doctors finally come and help her? Sergey Semenovich Sergey Sobyanin. Personal blog , maybe you know the answer? I understand that everyone has been told to dig and everyone is digging, but not everyone on the couch has a mother who is dying, whom you cannot help, because your hands are tied, because there is an order to NOT LET ANYONE. Alexander Nikolayevich, why in your science city of Korolev are doctors from the KOROLEV CITY HOSPITAL GBOZ MO Administration of the city of Korolyov tells us “When your mother will suffocate, then call”? Why can't a person in need of urgent hospitalization receive this help if there is official permission for urgent hospitalization in the hematology department? Why do doctors from Israel say we were given a referral to a hospice early? Why are they ready to help us remotely, but they cannot, because we can’t even donate blood, do a lumbar puncture? And one of the main questions I have for the Ministry of Health of Russia is : what needs to be done to ensure that my mother is hospitalized and provided medical care?

Not only Marina has such a question ...

Novye Izvestia has already cited a chronicle of the last days: one of the largest hospitals in Irkutsk, IAPO Medical Unit, was quarantined, and treatment of patients with tumors was postponed. They refuse the planned operations scheduled for April at the endocrinological research center of the RF Ministry of Health (Moscow). Medical University. Mechnikov in St. Petersburg asked nonresident patients to refrain from traveling, despite the results of analyzes and the urgency of therapy. Perm regional infectious diseases hospital was quarantined - COVID-19 is suspected by doctors. The largest hospital named after Kuvatov in Ufa is closed. The governor of St. Petersburg, Alexander Beglov, has just announced a list of hospitals that are going to be given next month for placement of coronavirus-infected people. The largest national medical research center for oncology named after N.N. Petrova of the Ministry of Health of the Russian Federation.

Cancer patients who are here in horror. This clinic is one of the last and most famous in the region, open for reception and treatment of all types and stages of cancer. More than 1200 people, including elderly, children, come here every month from all over Russia and the CIS countries. If the cancer center is redeveloped, it will be impossible to get appropriate high-tech medical care somewhere nearby. And its interruption according to the protocols approved by the Ministry of Health of the Russian Federation, really threatens life.

“More than a thousand patients want to put an end to it.” But we are alive! ” - Patients try to reach officials. Doctors are silent. According to the stories of patients, physicians have no right to express their opinion: otherwise they will be left without work.

“The highest qualification professionals work in the cancer center. But, probably, they cannot say anything in their defense, although we personally don’t understand how oncologists will treat coronavirus infection? ” - Patients ask a reasonable question.

Nobody knows the mechanism of how the people lying here will be discharged, whether they will be transferred somewhere else or simply asked out. But judging by how this happens in many other medical institutions in Russia, faced with the problem of re-profiling, everything will happen to the maximum pointless, merciless and chaotic. Optimization, which shocked Russian medicine a couple of years ago, does not allow us to believe that re-profiling hospitals in a hurry order will be carried out efficiently and at the highest level. After all, the same people are doing it.

Last month, Russia was all afraid to turn into Italy, where they did not have the opportunity to save the feeble old people with COVID-19: there weren’t enough beds, mechanical ventilation devices, doctors, so we went our own way - now patients, including young ones, are often left overboard an acute condition that was simply “unlucky” to get sick with something else in the year when the coronavirus reigns in the world.

With all the ruthlessness and chaos of what is happening, there still remains an organ that, by duty, is supposed to serve, if not as a regulator, then as a compass for desperate people. Where do they go now? Where to get medical help?

Novye Izvestia repeatedly sent official requests to the Minister of Health of the Russian Federation, Mikhail Murashko, with dozens of SOS messages from cancer patients from all over the country. Answers, as a rule, come promptly, but do not contain anything other than the general words that "everything is under control."

What is this “control” worth telling on the example of the Federal State Budgetary Institution "Scientific Center" (Center for X-ray Radiology) of the same Ministry of Health of Russia. An unpleasant story happened there - a virus was detected in the surgical department, one postoperative patient for 4 days was left without medical attention and without information about what was happening. We redirected the issue to the Ministry of Health. A reply was received the next day. The Ministry of Health reports:

“The Center took all measures to prevent the spread of COVID-19, all rooms were immediately disinfected in accordance with the requirements of SanPiN. Individuals with positive COVID-19 tests are isolated and monitored. Persons in contact with them are isolated separately. The situation is fully controlled. ”

The next day, the panicking patient was transferred to another “clean” ward. For the first time since the beginning of the epidemic, the medical staff and the oncological patient undergoing treatment were tested, and almost all of them gave a positive result, and the patients were even more worried. We again appealed to the Ministry of Health: “the coronavirus continues to threaten cancer patients - where can they be saved?” The Ministry of Health swallowed the tongue, they ceased to enter into correspondence. We have every reason to believe that they are not very aware of what to do with these oncologics when the treatment center attacks the coronavirus, and therefore stupidly withheld basic information - how many doctors and patients were infected there. The only reaction that immediately followed from the Federal State Budgetary Institution RNSRR was the obstruction of the patient by the medical staff and her early discharge home.

It would not be worth recalling this story, which was extremely unpleasant for the respected Center of Radiological Radiology, if the quarantine declared by Covid there would not endanger the health of another cancer patient.

“Because of the current situation in this hospital, my life is now in serious danger,” writes Evgeny K. (we indicated the name and coordinates in an official request to the Minister of Health). - March 25, 2020 I had an operation to remove the ovary. According to the Center for Radiology, this is a benign formation. But later changes in the lungs were revealed, and doctors suggest that these are metastases. To select further tactics for examination and treatment, it is necessary to revise the histology operating material (glasses and blocks), which is stored in the Federal State Budgetary Institution "Russian Center for Psychiatric Research". For 2 weeks I have been trying to ensure that my glasses are returned to me. But they offer me only to wait for the end of quarantine, which can continue for a very long time. Here is the answer to my written appeal, I received the following answer: “Sorry! Currently, by order of Rospotrebnadzor, the Center is closed for quarantine! Access is not possible. Follow the information on the site! ” I do not ask for medical assistance at the center, I just need to pick up the glass, but they refuse me that. In my situation, every day is expensive, we are talking about metastases and the need for urgent treatment. I have a little daughter who is 4 years old. I bring her up alone. And due to the fact that they cannot just give me my glasses, the situation can go very far. "

Having no other opportunities to help, “NI” are forced to again turn to the “chaos regulator” Minister of Health Murashko and ask for his assistance in issuing biological material to a woman who, not voluntarily, finds herself in a crisis situation. At the same time, we have a question: on the basis of what instructions and rules does quarantine by Covid cancel all contacts of the specialized medical institution with its patients and allow it to relieve itself of professional responsibility for their future life and health? red tape and indifference to people.

Cancer patients have reason to think so. Officials no longer embarrassed, publicly declare that "they don’t die from cancer right away." A few days ago, such a passage was marked by the first deputy head of the department of health and social protection of the Belgorod region Lyudmila Krylova in response to panic patients due to the closure of one of the surgical buildings of the oncology dispensary for quarantine. The official tried to reassure patients that they did not die from oncology immediately. “We are all now afraid of the coronavirus, and cancer patients believe that everything will die tomorrow. For you, I explain: there are no situations when I came and died of oncology!” - Bel.ru quotes Krylov . The head of the Belgorod Depzdrav added that a person can “carry” cancer for several years, so do not take the temporary closure of the surgical building as a limitation in medical care.

“To reassure patients”... It seems that any nonsense is used, in the absence of normal human instruments in our health care. “Failure to provide assistance in the old days was criminally punished! And here the doctors also mock! ”, - Muscovite Nadezhda Gordeeva is indignant at the statements of officials. Others already have no feedback; there is only one grief. Natalia Fedorova : My husband is 59 years old. Lung cancer, stage 4. Since the beginning of February we have been diagnosed, we have done everything, passed the glasses for analysis to the 62nd hospital in Moscow on April 1. We are still waiting for the results. Already a month! My husband is getting worse every day, he is dying at home, we can’t do anything without these damn analyzes - there’s no consilium, no treatment, no disability, no sick leave !!! I'm desperate….

In response, the conjuration: “Cancer will wait. We are all afraid of the coronavirus now”