“Makes you want to cry”: The endless parade of deaths from coronavirus in a Moscow hospital

For about 20 months, Dr. Evgueni Riabkov has seen parading patients with covid-19 who die in their Moscow hospital, faced like all Russia to a new wave of the epidemic. In their last moments, many regret not having been vaccinated.

“They usually look for excuses, they say they wanted to do it tomorrow”The doctor tells AFP on a visit this Wednesday to his covid unit at the Sklifosovski Institute, in the center of the Russian capital.

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“Unfortunately, tomorrow is late”, adds.

In recent weeks, the increase in infections and deaths from coronavirus has returned to being dramatic in Russia, with daily records around 1,000 deaths.

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The country has so far accounted for some 230,000 deaths as a result of the coronavirus, according to government figures. But this balance underestimates the true scope of the pandemic. Russia’s statistics agency Rosstat recorded more than 400,000 deaths at the end of August.

Alexander Shakotko, who runs the hospital’s intensive care unit, speaks during an interview with AFP. (DIMITAR DILKOFF / AFP).

Faced with a fourth wave of the boreal summer driven by the delta variant, authorities were slow to react. On Wednesday, President Vladimir Putin finally ordered a non-working week for early November to try to curb the pandemic.

But the public powers continue to refuse for now more restrictive measures, such as a lockdown, for fear of weakening the economy. In the streets of Moscow, by far the main epidemic focus of the country, bars and restaurants are still open and the use of masks is little respected and little controlled.

As for vaccination, it is progressing very slowly due to the traditional distrust of the Russians. Less than a third of the population is vaccinated, according to the specialized Gogov portal.

Desire to cry

Faced with all this, Dr. Evgueni Riabkov does not hide his frustration.

“If I take a drive, I see people without masks having fun, old and young. This infuriates me because I work for them. Unfortunately they don’t understand “says this 54-year-old doctor.

“In those cases, I feel like crying”adds this man who has lost five of his colleagues to the covid.

The head of the hospital’s resuscitation service, Alexander Shakotko, is sure: only vaccination can defeat the disease. “We need social responsibility,” he says.

Doctors work in the intensive care unit for coronavirus patients at Moscow’s Sklifosovsky emergency hospital. (Dimitar DILKOFF / AFP).

One of his patients, Olga Ryjko, a 51-year-old architect, admits to having postponed her vaccination several times, even though she is not opposed to it. Now she is eternally grateful to her doctors. “I wouldn’t be here if they hadn’t saved me.”

Others were not so lucky. On Monday, one of her roommates died.

Another patient from the resuscitation service, Anatoly Poliakov, a retired policeman, has been there for two weeks. He says that with his wife they awaited the arrival of a “solid” vaccine.

“We wait, we wait and we wait. And here is the result “laments this 76-year-old man. If he leaves the hospital alive, he swears to tell “everyone” that you have to get vaccinated as soon as possible.

The doctors of this covid unit, exhausted, no longer wait for the end of the nightmare, a way to still find the strength to fight.

“During the first two waves we said to ourselves ‘come on, we have to resist a little longer and then we will regain a normal life’”, remembers Alexander Shakotko. “But we don’t think about that anymore. Now, for us, this is a normal life. “

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