Mastodawn

Ashoka Jul 2, 2023

1/ Russian front-line hospitals are experiencing acute shortages of personnel and supplies. Only officers are reportedly evacuated to Russia, with ordinary soldiers being treated without anaesthesia or drugs. Volunteers are providing most of the medical supplies. ⬇️

ChrisO_wiki Jul 2, 2023

2/ The Insider reports on the calamitous state of Russian front-line medical care in the occupied regions of Ukraine. Getting to a medical facility is hard enough – many have complained that the wounded are not being evacuated and are often left to die.

Wounded soldiers are supposed to be stabilised and sent to the nearest military field hospital. After triage, hey are meant to be sent to regional hospitals in the occupied territories or in Russia, depending on the severity of their injuries.

ChrisO_wiki Jul 2, 2023

3/ In practice, only officers are reportedly sent back to Russia; soldiers and NCOs are being treated within Ukraine. Particularly since the Ukrainian counter-offensive began, medical facilities there are so overwhelmed that schools and kindergartens are being used as hospitals.

ChrisO_wiki Jul 2, 2023

4/ Even within Russia, hospitals are overwhelmed by injured men. Russia's decript health care system is a further obstacle: there are no computers, everything is done by hand and it reportedly takes 45-60 minutes to deal with each man. There is no digitisation of records.

Only a quarter of those queuing are actually being seen due to the very slow rate with which they are being processed. "The guys line up before opening. As a result, after sitting all day, they cannot get an appointment."

ChrisO_wiki Jul 2, 2023

5/ Volunteers are keeping hospitals supplied with literally tons of medical assistance. As The Insider puts it, "Calls for help, photos of severed or almost severed limbs of soldiers in fundraising chats alternate with jingoistic videos, pro-Russian videos from TikTok, congratulations on Russia Day and other public holidays."

ChrisO_wiki Jul 2, 2023

6/ The civilian hospital in Valuyki in the Belgorod region is a main treatment centre for Russian wounded, but lacks everything from wipes to prescription drugs. Doctors say they lack disinfectants such as chlorhexidine and hydrogen peroxide, solutions for IVs, tubes for decompression of the gastrointestinal tract, drainage systems for the chest, gauze bandages, bandages, and painkillers. Anaesthetics are in short supply as well.

ChrisO_wiki Jul 2, 2023

7/ The doctors also have no tools. They ask volunteers to buy surgical scissors, clamps, staplers and staples for suturing wounds and internal organs, hemostatic sponges to stop bleeding, and tablets to determine the patients' blood group.

The medics face particularly acute problems in dealing with amputations, which have become among the most common procedures they are having to perform due to the number of injuries caused by shelling and mine explosions.

ChrisO_wiki Jul 2, 2023

8/ The number of amputations is also much greater than it should be. Soldiers are poorly trained in emergency aid and lack high-quality tourniquets in their first aid kits. Tourniquets are often improperly applied, leaving no option but to amputate the injured limb.

ChrisO_wiki Jul 2, 2023

9/ This problem has been acknowledged before by the Russian authorities. The head of the Kalashnikov Centre for Tactical Medicine, Artyom Katulin, has said that more than 30% of amputations were due to improper tourniquet application. Russian paramedics are often poorly trained.

ChrisO_wiki Jul 2, 2023

10/ According to Dmitry Trishkin, head of the military medical department of the Defense Ministry, by December last year approximately a quarter of the soldiers admitted to hospitals were in a serious or extremely serious condition. Half were moderately seriously injured.

ChrisO_wiki Jul 2, 2023

11/ However, this was before the start of the Ukrainian counter-offensive and the bloodiest stage of the Battle of Bakhmut, which have both caused a huge increase in Russian casualties. Figures are kept secret but are certain to be high – in the tens of thousands.

ChrisO_wiki Jul 2, 2023

12/ The hospitals themselves are often in a poor condition due to a lack of investment. Some Russian hospitals are still using beds shipped to them by the British in World War II. They lack air conditioning and are stiflingly hot in summer, adding to the patients' discomfort.

ChrisO_wiki Jul 2, 2023

13/ Although the hospitals have been kept afloat by volunteers, fatigue appears to have set in. One Moscow region volunteer says: "People are tired of the Special Military Operation, every month fewer people send us money The amounts that people transfer have also decreased."

ChrisO_wiki Jul 2, 2023

14/ The pro-Ukrainian incursion at Shebekino in May 2023 also diverted funds away from hospitals. A widespread volunteer effort helped the local inhabitants, many of whom lost their homes in the fighting. However, hospitals have lost out and conditions have deteriorated. /end

Source:
https://theins.ru/obshestvo/262804

Без лекарств, анестезии и наркоза: как лечат в российских прифронтовых госпиталях

Минобороны активно вербует на войну с Украиной, но после ранений участники войны государству уже неинтересны. В госпиталях, где лечатся солдаты, не хватает медикаментов, расходников, оборудования. После начала контрнаступления ВСУ поток раненых вырос, а снабжение больниц, наоборот, ухудшилось. Как ни парадоксально, врачи военных госпиталей и приграничных стационаров получают расходники и лекарства от волонтеров, а не от властей. При этом поток пожертвований ослабевает. Владимир Путин дважды отправлял в отставку руководителей служб обеспечения тыла, но глава военно-медицинского управления Минобороны продолжает работать, несмотря на плачевную ситуацию со снабжением госпиталей.

The Insider

ChrisO_wiki Jul 2, 2023

Related thread on the terrible state of medical care for injured Russian soldiers: https://mastodon.social/@ChrisO_wiki/110388201859395751

Toni Scott Jul 2, 2023

@ChrisO_wiki Appalling!

Matt Francis Jul 2, 2023

@ChrisO_wiki An interesting surrogate for public opinion that can no longer be expressed there in other ways.

(Hot take: or "compassion fatigue starting from an extremely low bar")

nadin brzezinski Jul 2, 2023

@ChrisO_wiki this is the money quote

Nora Y.Jul 2, 2023

@ChrisO_wiki Thank you for your time and toots ❤️

Edolis Jul 2, 2023

@ChrisO_wiki I wonder if these amputations due to applied tourniquet are actually caused by neglecting the periodic easing of the tourniquet to avoid death of tissues. Which would mean the people performing the transfer and wait for triage don't know or don't care.

ChrisO_wiki Jul 2, 2023

@edolis I'm no expert, but that sounds quite likely.

LisPi Jul 4, 2023

@edolis @ChrisO_wiki How is that generally done?

(I really should get first-aid training at some point, though the pandemic & lack of care in schools lingers here so I don't know when I'll get the opportunity.)

Edolis Jul 4, 2023

@lispi314 @ChrisO_wiki I'm no expert here but I guess you have to periodically ease the tourniquet to allow some blood flow to bring some oxygen to the tissues. That's why there is a place to write the time of application/ seen that the russians often have a kind of rubber band instead which they fasten like the one once used for blood draw. cheap and no place for the annotation.+ ignorance+slowness->death of tissues->amputation.

ArnoWI 🇧🇪🇪🇺🇺🇦🇵🇸Jul 2, 2023

@ChrisO_wiki
what are they complaining about? Putler, Shoigu, Gerasimov and the rest of the Russian tyranny are sitting comfortable in their dashas. All thanks to their sacrifice for the motherland!

Florian Pigorsch Jul 2, 2023

@ChrisO_wiki that's really horrible - but kind of expected.
Thank you for posting this on Mastodon!

philklako Jul 2, 2023

@ChrisO_wiki reminds me of the state of medicine during the first world war as described by Norman Stone.