News

In the view of a rise in assaults on ambulance staff, Chairman of the Investigative Committee Alexander Bastrykin has ordered all divisions to analyze the situation in regions and respond to impeding the activity of medical staff.

Recently there have been more and more physical assaults on medical staff by patients and their relatives, parties of road accidents provoked by drivers who refused to let an ambulance pass and other incidents. Two men who stabbed a paramedic because of a road conflict have been jailed in Irkutsk Region. Investigators in Moscow Region continue to look into severe beating of a radiologist by a patient’s relative.

Year in year out these attacks show no sign of abating and judging by the past week it’s getting worse. Just the other day a female driver in Kamchatka Territory did not let an ambulance pass so paramedics were too late to save patient's life. In Saint Petersburg, a bold Mercedes driver holding a knife threatened to kill an ambulance driver in the middle of a busy road. Those are only a few conspicuous incidents being investigated by the Investigative Committee.

Mass media has also been reporting many incidents when medical staff attending an emergency call  get attacked. Some typical examples from 2016: in Moscow, a man attacked paramedics who arrived to attend his call; in Vologda Region, a man threatened with a gun to paramedics who arrived to help his wife; in Tatarstan, some drunk people beat an orderly so that he landed in a hospital with broken ribs, lung laceration and other injuries.

In most cases such attacks can harm not only paramedics, but can cost a life to someone they have arrived to tend to. In other words it defies the whole society, this is why such incidents must get strict legal assessment and it is high time for any intervention in the work of medical staff to be treated as strictly as law enforcement obstruction. Mr. Bastrykin demanded that his subordinates check all incidents that were not subject to procedural checks and that they open investigations in them if there are legal grounds to do that. The investigative Committee is going to protect the rights of medical staff who no matter what help people and save their lives.