Before you watch the report on another inspection trip by the Doctors’ Alliance to a hospital in Sochi—and everyone really should watch it—I want to remind you of our 2014 report, “Sochi: An Encyclopedia of Spending.” Back then I still had a blog on LiveJournal, and it’s funny to look back at it now.
They spent 1.5 trillion rubles. During the construction period and right afterward, the whole country was fed the line that yes, the sum was enormous, but not only Greater Sochi—all of Krasnodar Krai would soon be living a wonderful, prosperous, comfortable life.
And now you can watch the report itself and see this man from the palliative care ward—that is, a hospice for the dying. He explains that the hospital administration is lying when it says he is being treated free of charge, as required by law.
His relatives are paying for him to stay in a state hospital. And the relatives of all the other patients are paying too.
Look at the cockroaches swarming through the rooms of dying patients.
Look at the doctors earning 26,000 rubles a month, despite the 70,000-ruble salary guaranteed for Krasnodar Krai by Putin’s May decrees (a set of presidential social spending promises issued in 2012).
When the Alliance arrived for the inspection, the head doctor locked the elderly patients in their rooms and would not even let them go to the toilet. He was afraid the union’s cameraman would film them. But that did not work.
The Alliance was kept out of the hospital with police assistance, but the doctors themselves filmed everything and passed it on to the union.
This, my friends, is not Ryazan Region, not Tambov, and not Kurgan. We have all long since grown used to the authorities not giving a damn about provincial Russia. This is elite Dagomys. Just 10 km (about 6 miles) from Putin’s residence, where he spends nearly most of his working time.
Take in the scale of the catastrophe our healthcare system has fallen into over 20 years of Putin’s rule. And help spread this video. Let everyone see what the future of Russian medicine looks like.
