On the eve of a large-scale rally planned to promote improved healthcare for children in Novosibirsk, two more incidents highlight the parlous state of Russia’s hospitals.
In Zabaikalsk Region, deep in Siberia, parents are planning legal action against the doctors who they believe failed to save their son’s life.
Meanwhile a blogger has launched an online appeal to President Dmitry Medvedev over the "nightmare” conditions in a Moscow children’s hospital.
Delays blamed for death
In a case which echoes the death of eight-month-old Maxim Makarov in Novosibirsk earlier this month, the family of Andrei Kotenok are taking legal action after the six-year-old’s death following kidney surgery.
According to gzt.ru the family found one hospital could provide neither specialist staff nor appropriate medicine when he needed surgery after a cycling accident in June 2010, and it took a 10-hour drive to get the boy to a hospital which could help.
That delay contributed to the boy’s death the next day, his relatives believe.
It is also claimed that a shortage of suitable blood for a transfusion and a faulty monitor further hindered Andrei’s hopes of recovery.
Russian children’s ombudsmen Pavel Astakhov has been urged to intervene in the case by Anastasia Kopteyeva, a lawyer with the Human Rights Centre.
"The investigating authorities are checking what happened, but I doubt the objectivity of that investigation,” she told gzt.ru. "I am going to ask Astakhov for help.”
However, local investigators say there is no criminal case to answer over the death.
Capital complaint
Blogger Yanissimo, from Volgograd in southern Russia, posted details of what he found when he brought his child to Moscow for treatment.
"Even the doctors say this state hospital is scary,” Yanissimo wrote on his Livejournal page about his experiences.
His account describes a day wasted standing in queues for six hours simply to complete the registration processes and get into the hospital.
Then he explains how his wife was left with nowhere to stay with their young child and spent two weeks with only a stool to sleep on (see picture above).
"If someone is discharged there is universal rejoicing,” he added. "It means an empty chair and one lucky person can sleep tonight on two chairs.”
And, referring to the presidential address Medvedev made on Tuesday, which focused on children and modernisation, Yanissimo asked: "Do you have any ideas about children in general?
"We are cut off from our culture. From education, from medicine, from science," he said sarcastically.
"But we have Skolkovo, and we are proud of you.”
Earlier this week Medvedev announced plans to reward families with land if they had more than three children and once again emphasised the importance of the Skolkovo innovation centre.
No response has been offered by either hospital or the president at the time of writing.
http://www.themoscownews.com/society/20101203/188253667.html
