Grigory Pasko: Pathological Lying

Diagnosis: Pathological Lying Lying as a method of survival for today’s power By Grigory Pasko, journalist In our family a nine-year-old child fell ill. Fever, coughing, stuffy nose… A typical picture at the end of winter, when a child’s organism is weakened, when there’s a deficiency of vitamins, when a slew of other kids just like him go to school with drippy noses and spreads infection… I started to phone the children’s polyclinic, in order to get a doctor to come by the house. All 35 minutes of my attempts the telephone at the other end was busy. I ended up having to go to the polyclinic myself. By the office with the sign «Doctor house calls» stood a queue of five people. I waited my turn and then entered the office. Behind the desk sat one woman holding a telephone receiver in one hand, and writing data on sick children to whom a doctor needed to be sent in a thick notebook with the other. I will note right from the start: the entire time I was in her office, the telephone did not stop ringing.

My son was signed up 16th in the queue. And this was just in the first hour of signing up sick children in the district. That is, it’s not difficult to calculate that during the sign-up time – from 08:30 to 12:00 – the list would comprise no less than 50 children.I asked the woman doctor how often there were such situations when there were many sick children all at once? In the autumn-winter period – every two-three months, she replied. And added that every two-three months the picture doesn’t change: she sits ALONE next to a SINGLE telephone.Then I asked: “And how many doctors service the sectors for house calls?” The reply dumbfounded me: “Today – one doctor, because two have fallen ill, and one doctor is on leave”.… It was only towards the end of the day that the doctor came to our home – a young girl. The examination of the sick child took less than 10 minutes. Having hastily written out a prescription, the girl dashed off: it was plainly evident that she still had many addresses of sick children left on her list.Healthy miracle knight in shining armor Dmitry Medvedev My wife has told me on occasion that going to our children’s hospital is sheer torture. Wild queues, some kind of accelerated examinations of the children…To this story I will add a significant detail. All of this is taking place today in a new residential densely-populated district of the city of Moscow – the capital of the Russian Federation. That same country whose leadership is assuring the population and the whole world for the second year already that the «national projects» are supposedly being implemented with grandiose successes. Among these projects, the main one is… the program of medical services to the population and health care.In so doing, the merits of the one responsible for these miracle-projects are constantly being extolled in every which way. And who is he? Why, none other than the first the vice-premier of the government of Russia, Dmitry Medvedev, recently appointed by Putin to be the future president of the country.I do a lot of traveling around the country and can say with confidence: if health services are such a mess in Moscow, then in the boondocks they’re a veritable nightmare. And so I sit here and think: The People, after all, are not idiots – they see everything and they understand everything. They understand that they’re being lied to about all these «national projects». They must understand that today’s power are liars to the core. But for some reason, The People still go out and vote for all these appointees…Or maybe… they don’t vote?Afterword: I purposely did not start writing an article about achievements in Russia in the area of health care: I’m sure there are some, and I’m sure this is a separate topic. There simply have to be some, with all those megabucks pouring into the country from the sale of oil. But there’s more to medicine than the procurement of new ambulances and new medical equipment. There’s also the organization of medical services to the population. During the time of the rule of the Putin team, this organization can not be said to have improved. Indeed, in many respects, it has plainly and simply deteriorated. This is why people write to Medvedev. I have specially chosen just a few typical appeals by The People to the future president. • Why is it becoming impossible to obtain free medical services even for those people who are citizens of Russia, diligently pay taxes and have an insurance policy? Medical workers cite all kinds of decrees and acts, and refuse on any pretext, because there isn’t a registration, because one has to receive treatment at the place of residence permit. One starts to get the impression that all the juices are being squeezed out of working people, with absolutely no concern for the fact that it is none other than they who are creating the economic growth of the country.Vitaly Gusev, 27 years old, Moscow. • Given our level of earned income and the high cost of medical services (operation, computer tomography, analysis for hormonal status, expensive medicines), how can our pensioners obtain skilled med. care?Yelena Petriva, 41 years old, Moscow.• Both primary medical care and long-term care are accessible only to a precious few. The “03” service [the two-digit telephone number to call an ambulance throughout the former USSR—Trans.] refuses to transport sick people to hospitals. This concerns especially pensioners and invalids. The soulless healer will easily make you an invalid and forget [about you]. All problems with respect to preserving what’s left of health will fall on the family. The entire health care system seems to be aimed at worsening the health of people. Lists of subsidized medicines are being reduced, the funding of means of rehabilitation of invalids too. What measures will be taken to get out of the dead-end?Lyudmila Yakovlevna, 58 years old, Moscow.• Esteemed Dmitry Alexandrovich! Annually in Russia nearly 5000 children fall ill with cancer. Of them, 50% survive thanks to timely treatment. And another 30% – could have survived, but die, simply because we did not have enough money, donated blood and kind hands. Realistically, the state is not providing any noticeable help to these children. In the nearest future will there be changes?Anastasia, 18 years old, Moscow.• In Kazan they opened a diagnostic center (DC) to great fanfare and talked a lot about the equipping of the clinical hospital (CH). In practice, I ran up against a problem (a cardiological examination of a child is needed). In order to get a referral to the CH or the DC, it is necessary to stand through hour-long queues one at a time – the physician, the cardiologist in the polyclinic, and then to get into a specialized center, which is little likely. But then you can do it directly as well, but you need to pay 300 rub. for a consultation with the cardiologist, 600rub. for an ultrasound of the heart. This is hard to call “concern for children”!Irek Rakhmatullin, 33 years old, Kazan.From the author: Those who are interested in other appeals on the topic of medicine to the “father” of the «national projects» can go to the source.