The Alliance of Doctors Trade Union started gathering information about the lack of personal protective equipment in medical institutions of Russia. In the evening of April 17, the Union's website published an appeal from its head, Anastasia Vasilyeva, addressed to the Head of the FSB. She asked Alexander Bortnikov to help provide health workers with masks, gloves and other PPE during the coronavirus pandemic.
People from the FSB leadership contacted the Alliance of Doctors after the publication of this letter, said Vasilyeva on her Facebook page on April 18. As a result, the trade union announced the beginning of information collection on the situation in medical institutions in the regions of Russia. You can report problems anonymously.
— So, if your clinic lacks masks, respirators, gloves, protective suits and other PPE, please send the information anonymously, our email is [email protected], - the Alliance of Doctors reported on its website.
The email must specify:
1. The city/town.
2. The name of the MPI.
3. What PPE is currently in short supply (point it out if you lack of masks and respirators).
4. Health workers’ COVID-19-related deaths or severe complications (if any).
5. The facts of forcing doctors to work while being sick (if any).
6. The Chief Doctor's full name (if you believe that the current situation is not his/her personal fault, than point this out! Chief doctors are absolutely welcome to contact us anonymously).
The trade union of medical workers asked to forward this message to the doctors you know who lack masks, respirators, gloves and protective suits significantly.
— If we don't protect each other, we won't save the patients. The epidemic will develop according to a scenario much worse than the Italian one, - Anastasia Vasilyeva believes.
Alliance of Doctors is an independent trade union of health workers that has held several major actions in the regions of Russia to protect the rights of health workers. Alexei Navalny provides information support to the trade union. According to Anastasia Vasilyeva, heatlh workers asked them to seek the FSB's help. When explaining what this department has to do with the problem, Vasilyeva wrote that the lack of PPE during the pandemic was a threat to the national security of Russia.
According to the Stopkoronavirus.rf website’s data as of 10:30AM, April 18, 4,785 new cases of coronavirus infection were detected in Russia during the day. In total, 36,793 residents of the country have been diagnosed with it and 313 people have died since the beginning of the pandemic.
