Special operation "Medicine": who will treat covid if all doctors are sent to the army?

Notifications have been sent to hospitals asking them to compile lists of doctors ready for a business trip. Will Russian medicine cope with the fight on 2 fronts - covid and special operation?

Irina Mishina

Our editorial office received a letter signed by the Deputy Minister of Health, which reads: “The Ministry of Health of the Russian Federation, in accordance with the instructions of the Minister of Health, and also in order to increase the readiness of the disaster medicine service to eliminate the medical and sanitary consequences of emergencies, asks to identify doctors ready for business trips -specialists and medical workers with secondary vocational education.

The agency also attached a list of specialists who need to be collected and sent to an unspecified region to "save life and preserve health". The Federal Center for Disaster Medicine undertook to take on all expenses.

In the professional medical community, judging by the messages of social networks, this caused a flurry of emotions.

Yuliana Mironova: “I will immediately quit medicine if they send me on a business trip... Well, I won’t go to work, let them fire me according to the article, I won’t go into medicine, they will understand why and because of what”.

Oksana Aksverova: “Sverdlovsk region, we have 7 people from our medical unit sitting on suitcases”.

Natalya Dagayeva: “We are still silent in Kazan. Well, if they say we'll go - what to do? Someone has to do this work. We, doctors, are liable for military service”.

Not the Sea: "Far from the border with Ukraine, the Sverdlovsk region, but also in readiness".

Natalia Chernakova: "And who will treat covid? Probably the Ministry of Health. Or maybe we will send them to the front line?

Albina Shakhtarova : “Now there will be no money for covid, they will lower the statistics and forget about it”.

Indeed, a good question. Didn't you notice that with the start of the special operation in Ukraine, there were practically no reports of covid? The statistics of sick and dead are given somehow timidly and last. However, the fact that Russian medicine is bled white by covid is obvious. As the rector of the Higher School of Health Organization and Management Guzel Ulumbekova told NI, today the shortage of doctors in primary care in Moscow is one and a half times. In the regions, paramedics are 2 times less than necessary. In Moscow, there are 4 and a half doctors per thousand of the population, in the regions - about 3 and a half.

“Will our medicine cope? I think it will work. Now covid is on the decline, the number of cases is decreasing. Many hospitals are transferred to planned care”, - said Guzel Ulumbekova, Doctor of Medical Sciences.

“Now surgeons and traumatologists will be in demand. It can be assumed that less qualified doctors will be involved in the treatment of covid, because Omicron passes like a regular flu in most cases. The number of hospitalizations decreased to 8-9%. Problems will be solved as they become available”, - Larisa Popovich, the director of the Institute for Health Economics at the National Research University Higher School of Economics, told Novye Izvestia.

Meanwhile, the shortage of doctors is acknowledged by both federal and regional authorities - some timidly, others bolder. So, the head of Rospotrebnadzor, Anna Popova, stated about the lack of medical personnel in the country, "something who understands biological safety." The regions are sounding the alarm: in Bashkiria, the demand for doctors has grown by 253%. About a thousand doctors and more than a thousand and a half nurses are missing in the Perm Territory. Crimea declares a shortage of 2,500 doctors, as well as 4,000 nursing staff. These are just a few examples.

When I was lying in the “red zone” of Kommunarka, surgeons treated me for covid. By the way, great treatment! Mostly they were doctors from the regions. This was understandable: there are not enough specialists. In Moscow and St. Petersburg, the main centers of Covid-19, with the onset of the pandemic, a large number of various specialists were discharged from the regions: from gynecologists and nephrologists to surgeons and oculists. They all worked in the "red zones" because the treatment protocols are about the same everywhere. And in this regard, the question arises: are there any doctors left in the regions now? And how much? And in general, due to the likely outflow of doctors to the areas of the special operation in Ukraine, which may not be so short-term, will there be anyone left in the regions who can treat not only covid, but also appendicitis, peritonitis, heart attacks, diabetes, cancer?

There is one more circumstance. Speaking about mortality from coronavirus, for some reason we are silent about the mortality of doctors. In the meantime, according to official statistics, it turns out that every 15th person who died from COVID-19 in the country is a doctor. This is 16 times more than in countries where the epidemic has acquired comparable proportions.

By the way, for reference: the American command, before starting hostilities, throw doctors to the "place" long before the start of the war. Representatives of medicine have always gained some influence on the locals. There is no choice: either support those who sent such a medic, or die from wounds, diseases, infections, and so on. And during the conflict itself, such medical services organized rear services, based on the help of locals. But we seem to have gone our own way.

As a person who worked in combat conditions, I can say that the most important thing in such conditions is that they are shooting there. It is difficult for a person who is at war for the first time to overcome fear, sometimes an effort is needed to start helping the victims. For many, such an effort appears to be an insurmountable step. But most understand that there is no choice and begin to help. It is clear that in addition to knowledge, special training is also needed here. We tried to call the All-Russian Center for Disaster Medicine "Protection" of the Federal Medical and Biological Agency to find out which specialists would be called to the area of the special operation, but none of the phones was available. We managed to get through to one of the leading surgeons of the Federal State Budgetary Institution “Russian Scientific Center for Surgery named after A.I. Petrovsky" Garnik Shatveryan. He explained that while he and his fellow surgeons are working as usual, no requests were received at the Petrovsky Institute of Surgery, according to his data. And sadly added: "Even if they do, our doctors are used to working in harsh conditions".