Paramedic From Salihorsk: They Take Away Bags With Dead Bodies Secretly

• 28.05.2020, 14:12

An honest story of a paramedic about the situation with COVID-19 in the city of miners.

The Ministry of Health of Belarus does not provide official data on the number of Salihorsk residents with COVID-19. No coronavirus - no bonuses for working with infection. The money for the bonuses was allocated, but not paid, said the paramedic of the Salihorsk ambulance station, which is a unit of the Central District Hospital. The healthcare worker told Belsat how the administration of the medical institution hides the real number of patients with COVID-19.

“Even the homeless help”

Aliaksandr [the name is changed at the request of the hero - edit.] For about five years, he has been working as a paramedic at the Salihorsk ambulance station. The wave of SARS in the city began in March, and since then the number of patients with pneumonia has been constantly growing. Patients in the Central Hospital of Salihorsk are brought not only from the town, but also from the district. Many of Aliaksandr’s colleagues became infected with the coronavirus and cannot work. Now even HIV-positive nurses carry out tests because no one is left:

“HIV nurses are not allowed to do intravenous injections, but now there’s nothing else we can do. When the hospital administration is asked from the above whether we need anything, they say that we have everything. But this is not true! We were given respirators - one respirator for seven days of work! Usual people bring means for individual protection to us, miners after shifts collected respirators and brought to us. Even homeless people who ask for a penny under the store bring masks for us.”

Doctors fall ill not only because of the lack of personal protective equipment, but also because of people hiding the positive result of their coronavirus test.

“Patients from Brest, Slutsk, Lyuban and Zhytkavichy are brought to us. This is generally a nightmare. For example, a person has a heart attack, we come, and he has had a fever for three days. He shows the paper, and he has COVID + there. And we are without protective gear, without anything! People do not understand what is happening. Half of our team is off work. Everyone gets sick - drivers, paramedics.”

Aliaksandr and his colleagues do not believe in official statistics regarding the number of patients and deaths related to the infection. He believes that 95% of cases are hidden to show a positive result in the fight against the infection. Tests are lost on the way from the hospital to the sanitary and epidemiological station, between which there are a few meters.

Aliaksandr adds that doctors do not want to diagnose coronavirus. Instead of a virus, they write in the journal “#19” - “changes typical of COVID-19”, and such entries make a majority:

“There is no coronavirus in Salihorsk; there is atypical pneumonia. How to prove it? The money for bonuses came. There was a meeting in this regard. Like, wait, we'll pay. But no one did the protocols. The position of the administration is as follows: you became infected because you were driving without a mask. Have you given us a mask?

All five years at the station, Aliaksandr works in one uniform, which literally breaks at the seams, so the man sometimes wears an army.

“They are secretly taking away black bags”

Coronavirus also affected Aliaksandr's family. His parents caught the infection at the funeral of a friend in late April in the village of Starobin. Believers opened the coffin with the deceased. The first symptom his relatives had was shortness of breath. The test result - negative - came three weeks after their hospitalization. Aliaksandr says this is not possible:

“I myself took them to CT. My parents had pneumonia typical of COVID-19. All symptoms, changes in the lungs. Besides, what pneumonia in May? They were in the hospital and saw how many corpses in black bags were taken out on gurneys at night. Everything was done quietly. This is a minus for us, as we did not save them, but we ourselves are without protection. Both children and adults are dying.”

The paramedic also commented on the death of Dr. Uladzimir Pisaryk. Earlier, the media reported that the result of the test for the coronavirus was negative, and the hospital management did not comment on this case, referring to medical secrets. Aliaksandr does not believe that the employee of the Central District Hospital did not have the infection:

“Pisaryk was on the ventilator in the “dirty zone” for about two weeks. The resuscitator himself said that he had COVID +. He was buried in a closed coffin. "

“We knew it would be hard.”

The interlocutor also spoke about the situation in the intensive care unit of the CRH. All the dirty work is done by nurses. They cry with fatigue, and their only desire is to go home:

“Everyone is just tired. In resuscitation, nurses are sutured. Imagine, for example, turning people from the stomach to the back at least. The doctor will get a bonus, but what will the nurse get? They work one day in the “dirty zone”, and then one day in the “clean zone”. They cry with fatigue and only say: “I want to go home.” In general, if the ambulance and the miners' hospital get sick, it will be hard for everyone.”

Aliaksandr adds: doctors do not fight for bonuses, most of all they need support and gratitude.

“Nobody cares of us. The trade union does not help. We don’t need money, the same administration could just humanly thank us for the fact that we work around the clock almost seven days a week. ”