Punitive medicine: creepy stories about how patients were abused in a Russian prison hospital - ForumDaily
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Punitive medicine: creepy stories about how patients were abused in a Russian prison hospital

Back in the fall of 2020, it became known that patients were being tortured in the Rostov prison hospital. But the case was opened only a year later. By November last year, more than 60 prisoners had testified. with the BBC tells why the investigation was silent and how people lose their health in the wards of prison psychiatry.

Photo: Shutterstock

An exhausted man sits on a chair, having difficulty focusing his gaze on the camera lens. There is loose skin on bare legs. He lowers his T-shirt - two eight-pointed stars, a thief's mark, are pinned at the armpits. On the left star there are tubes protruding from the body.

“They brought the person from the MRB (the old name of the Rostov tuberculosis hospital of the Federal Penitentiary Service, now it is called FKLPU MOTB-19), they even forgot to remove the catheter,” the male voice-over is indignant. - They stabbed him, he can’t talk. I went to surgery to treat my hip. I’ve arrived—a vegetable.”

Another voice adds: “They say we don’t have punitive medicine.” Then he turns to the person sitting on the chair: “Tell me, head doctor Mkrtchyan came there and saw your condition? Were you brought to the surgical department in the first place?”

The man barely nods. His eyes are empty.

“Why were you transferred to the madhouse?” - the questions continue. The man inarticulately wheezes that he smoked - apparently in the ward. But his interlocutors seem to already know the answer.

“Smoked, right? Is this why they started stabbing? - one of them sneers. “But in fact, for starting to complain.”

Another absentminded nod. A barely audible, gurgling voice is heard: “The PSC (Public Monitoring Commission) has come to see me.”

This video was sent by Igor Tkachenko, a former prisoner of one of the Don colonies. The emaciated man on the chair is himself. A couple of years ago, Tkachenko spent almost two months in the psychoneurological department of MOTB-19 with short breaks. According to him, all this time he lay tightly tied with ropes. He was injected with psychotropic drugs three times a day and was given practically no food.

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“I didn’t understand anything, my skin was peeling off like lants. In the end I thought I would die of hunger,” he says.

In prison parlance, this is called "knitting", and prisoners are no less afraid of them than mops - judging by reportedly human rights activists, one of the main torture instruments in Russian prisons.

Useful Permutations

The fact that in the Rostov region prisoners can be kept tied to their beds for weeks became known more than a year ago.

It was the members of the PMC that sounded the alarm. In August 2020, while inspecting the pre-trial detention center, they found scars on the leg of a prisoner. In fact, he learned to walk again, in the cell he was helped to develop his joints.

The man told human rights activists that the scars were left from the belts with which he was tied to a bed in the psycho-neurological department of MOTB-19. In an immobile state, drugged, he spent 71 days, he explained.

The next day, human rights activists and employees of the CSS of the Federal Penitentiary Service raided the hospital with a check. They found the connected people in several rooms at once.

“Orders from among the prisoners were assigned to the wards. They were not prepared for our visit, and they told us how many they had not untethered—five days, a week, three,” recalls the chairman of the Rostov Public Monitoring Committee, Igor Omelchenko.

He says that one of the patients developed a huge bedsore on his back from the “knitting” - “as if he had been shot in the back.”

“After finishing the examination, we went up to the head physician of MOTB-19, Tigran Mkrtchyan,” continues Omelchenko. “We still didn’t understand what was happening.” They suggested installing cameras in the wards for control and security. But in response we received a wave of negativity. Then some operative, covered in tattoos, came into the office and began to attack: “Why did you come here? Where are you going?" And we suspected that something was wrong here.”

Members of the Public Monitoring Committee returned to the pre-trial detention center to photograph the wounds of the prisoner who had been kept in bondage for 71 days. It didn’t work out right away: the prisoner either gave written consent to the photo, then withdrew it. “There was psychological pressure on the guy,” Omelchenko is sure.

As a result, pictures of the wounds were published online. This led to an investigation - together with employees of the Internal Security Service of the Federal Penitentiary Service, human rights activists traveled around the colonies in search of victims of the “matings”. Many people spoke about the torture, but only 20 people gave written testimony. Omelchenko throws up his hands: “Some were afraid, but others decided not to interfere.”

Later, the number of episodes increased to 62. It also turned out that one of the prisoners, Roman Mikhailov, died in the prison hospital in the summer of 2020, presumably as a result of “mating.” Due to bedsores, he developed sepsis.

Omelchenko admits that an accident helped with the polls - on September 2, a new head of the regional department of the Federal Penitentiary Service, Dmitry Bezrukikh, was appointed in the Rostov region. “He gave the CSS the command to work,” explains the human rights activist. — With the previous acting the head, Senokosov, the relationship did not work out.”

The chairman of the PMC says that he immediately handed over the collected materials to the prosecutor's office and the Investigative Committee. However, nothing happened for a whole year.

“There was no criminal case. I was not interviewed even as part of the pre-investigation check. Over the course of the year, we received five or six refusals to initiate criminal proceedings. We filed complaints, but to no avail,” recalls Omelchenko.

The case moved again after personnel changes - in February 2021, the Don prosecutor was Roman Praskov.

In July, Omelchenko came to see him, after which two criminal cases were initiated at once, according to the head of the PMC.

The first was opened in connection with the death of Roman Mikhailov - under the article of causing death by negligence. The second is being investigated under the article of abuse of power and combines more than 60 episodes collected last year by human rights activists and employees of the Internal Security Service of the Federal Penitentiary Service.

The Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation refused to comment on them, citing the secrecy of the investigation.

At the same time, according to human rights activists, it was only in the late fall of 2021 that the episode from which, in fact, the whole trial began, was added to the second case: about a guy who spent 71 days in mating.

This patient could hardly have imagined that his journey, which began as a child in Kazakhstan, would lead through Malaysia, China and Turkey - and lead to a dirty bed in a Rostov prison hospital.

But that's exactly what happened.

“I found an outlet in religion”

Vazgen Zargaryan never planned to live in Russia. He taught foreign languages ​​and dreamed of traveling the world. So when his Russian mother and her family moved from Kazakhstan to Rostov in 2010, he did not follow them. He first studied in Malaysia, and then moved to China, where he entered the University of Technology.

“He is a capable boy, he knows seven languages,” his relative Natalya is proud. According to her, Vazgen found a girl in China and was going to marry her. He came to Rostov to visit his family on vacation.

Everything collapsed in 2013 - Vazgen’s 17-year-old brother committed suicide. Relatives believe that it is from unhappy love. “Of course, everyone blamed themselves,” says Natalya. “We didn’t talk to each other for almost a year, we walked around like zombies. Vazgen suffered the hardest of all. He told my mother that he would not leave her alone, and he never returned to China.”

When he first saw his brother dead, Zargaryan himself tried to commit suicide. He was rescued at the last moment.

According to the woman, in trying to cope with grief, Vazgen found an outlet in religion. He converted to Islam at the age of 14 because all his friends were Muslims. But he didn’t reach the point of fanaticism, he simply “kept to the foundations.” And then he began to increasingly retire to prayer and go to the local Rostov mosque. “That’s where the Wahhabis recruited him,” sighs a relative.

She recalls that at some point Vazgen began to talk about the “paradise” that Muslims are allegedly building in Syria. He said that “everyone is a believer” there and there is no “dirt.” Relatives perceived these conversations with irony - they were not interested in news about international terrorism.

Finally he started talking about going to Syria. “We answered: “Are you a fool, or what?”,” recalls Natalya. “They talked him out of it.”

In the summer of 2015, Vazgen was detained by FSB investigators. He was accused of preparing to participate in a terrorist organization and an illegal armed group abroad.

The investigation alleged that Vazgen Zargaryan tried three times to get into Syria in order to join the ranks of the Islamic State organization, which is recognized as terrorist in Russia and is banned.

According to investigators, the day before he met in a messenger with several Russians who were already members of this group. Under their leadership, he flew to Turkey twice to get to Syria in transit. In both cases, the Turkish security forces sent him back. For the third time, he planned to go to Turkey through Georgia, but did not have time to buy tickets.

The case was considered in court in a special order, without examining the evidence. Zargaryan pleaded guilty and cooperated with the investigation.

“I asked him later - why did you do this? - Natalya recalls. “He replied that he was so intimidated by the long sentence that he signed everything that was given to him.”

In 2016, the Southern District Military Court sentenced Zargaryan to 2,5 years in prison. "Kommersant" quoted Zargaryan’s mother, Elena Fedorovna, who expressed gratitude to the FSB officers for “stopping” her son in a timely manner, removing the “zombification” from him and returning him to his “previous psychological state.”

“He started reading books and communicating with relatives again,” she rejoiced.

As subsequent events showed, this joy was premature.

"For the same thing"

On December 21, 2017, Elena Fedorovna stood at the exit from IK-10 in Rostov. Natalya recalls that the woman came there at six in the morning and could not wait for her son to leave the gates of the colony.

An hour passed, then two, then five. The young man never showed up.

“The officers on duty said that he had freed himself,” says Natalya. “But we knew it wasn’t!” They rushed around there, looking for him. He just disappeared."

In their attempts to find Vazgen, they, in their own words, “raised the ears” of human rights activists. After a while, he was found - again in the FSB pre-trial detention center, with a new criminal case.

According to the executive director of the Center for Legal Defense of Disabled People and Persons with Socially Significant Diseases Oleg Sokurenko, Zargaryan was taken to a pre-trial detention center the night before his release. A few months before, he was summoned to the operational department of the colony - here Sokurenko stipulates that he knows about this from the case materials, as well as from the words of Zargaryan himself and his lawyer.

“An operative was sitting there. He gave Vazgen a mobile phone - hold it, he said, you’ll call if anything happens. He refused. But the operative still insisted that Vazgen pick up the phone,” Sokurenko recounts.

After leaving the department, Zargaryan was detained. The seized phone contained videos of the same banned group “Islamic State”.

“Immediately there were witnesses among the convicts who said that he was promoting extremism. He called for him to go to Syria after his release. — Sokurenko smiles sadly. - Classics of the genre".

The human rights activist himself is sure that Zargaryan did not call anyone to do anything. As part of the POC, he saw him more than once in the colony and claims that the guy wanted to return to normal life. “He admitted his mistakes,” Sokurenko recalls. “The ideas of ISIS were no longer close to him.”

“Vazgen really wanted to go home,” agrees his relative Natalya. — His mother was diagnosed with oncology - it probably developed due to nervousness. And he was very worried, he dreamed of seeing her.”

Natalya recalls that Zargaryan was very frightened when, instead of being released, he was dragged to a pre-trial detention center. They put a sack over his head, and he decided that he was “taken to be killed.”

“I asked why they took him away, they answered him: “for the same thing,” she retells Vazgen’s words. - Apparently, then he went a little crazy. He couldn’t sleep for several days.”

Sokurenko adds that even during his first term he noted Zargaryan’s unstable emotional state - mood swings and outbursts of aggression.

A new criminal case against Zargaryan was opened under the article on assistance to terrorist activities. According to the human rights activist, in March 2018, after several months in a pre-trial detention center, Vazgen suffered a severe mental disorder. He got into a fight with his cellmates and smashed it. Natalya claims that all this time the cellmates deliberately provoked the man.

He was taken by ambulance to the psychiatric ward. So Zargaryan first got into the MOTB.

Ten walker in MOTB

Zargaryan spent more than a week undergoing treatment. The conclusion of the medical commission stated that the patient “received haloperidol, vitamin B12, diphenhydramine, riboxin, glycine, tranquesipam, neuleptil.” He was discharged in “satisfactory” condition with a diagnosis of “emotionally labile personality disorder.”

A week after his return, Zargaryan poured boiling water on the pre-trial detention center inspector. The day before, according to his cellmate, he was talking to himself in Arabic, praying for a long time and laughing for no reason. Zargaryan himself explained that he “wanted to punish” the inspector for not giving him the blue bag that contained the things after cleaning.

The man was admitted to the hospital for two weeks and was again injected with psychotropic drugs. He was discharged - and a few days later he returned to the “psychiatry”. This continued several times, all this time his relatives and human rights activists were not allowed into the room, explaining that Zargaryan was being treated and should not be disturbed. They could see Vazgen only in the pre-trial detention center, after discharge. At the end of June, relatives forced their way into a meeting at MOTB-19 itself. There they saw a picture that they call terrible.

“My son’s whole body was shaking, and not just his hands, his mouth did not open, his teeth did not unclench, he could see salivation, which he could not cope with, sluggish speech, loss of coordination,” Zargaryan’s mother wrote in her complaint to Roszdravnadzor. “In response to our questions about his condition, the son explained that these were the consequences of an overdose of medication, which occurred accidentally due to the fault of medical personnel, and that for five days he has been under physical constraint 24 hours a day!”

The woman complained that every time he was taken to MOTB-19, her son was kept tied up for several days.

According to Oleg Sokurenko, gradually Zargaryan became more and more aggressive. He rushed at cellmates and prison staff, doused them with urine and boiling water.

The psychological examination materials mention “cannabinoid dependence syndrome,” which Zargaryan allegedly suffered from. He is quoted as admitting that he tried drugs - spice, salt, marijuana. But Zargaryan denies addiction everywhere: “I tried it once, quit, didn’t like it.”

At first, he explains the aggression by disagreement with the second criminal case: “I was imprisoned once, that was enough for me. I swear to the Almighty, I didn’t do this, the operational officers forced the cellmates to write this.” Later, he began to say that he was sick and that the genies “ordered him” to attack the pre-trial detention center employees.

Relative Natalya is sure that Zargaryan’s mental problems worsened due to haloperidol - it gave “strong hallucinations”, due to which Vazgen heard voices in his head.

“He didn’t do drugs, didn’t drink, and went in for sports,” says Natalya. “And then they started stabbing him.” These drugs even make a healthy person go crazy the first time. And he received them all the time. This is real torture."

The woman claims that Zargaryan was sent to MOTB more than ten times. Despite this and the diagnosed personality disorder, not a single examination found any mental abnormalities in Vazgen. He himself was recognized as sane, and the story with the genies as a simulation.

Natalya is especially outraged by this: “If he was healthy, why did they constantly put him in psychiatry? And if he was sick, then he should have been treated, not imprisoned!”

Oleg Sokurenko says that while the trial on the case of propaganda of extremism was going on (it lasted almost three years), investigators “accumulated material” about causing harm to FSIN employees and disorganizing the work of colonies. This led to the initiation of new criminal cases.

“They poured boiling water on him, and they kept adding more and more to him,” recalls the human rights activist.

In the summer of 2020, Zargaryan was briefly placed in a temporary holding cell in a pre-trial detention center. There the man found a tin can lid and injured himself. He was taken to the city hospital and was barely saved; there was a lot of blood loss. A relative, Natalya, believes that the idea of ​​injuring himself was also suggested to him by the “genies.”

From the hospital, Zargaryan was again transported to the MOTB, where he eventually spent 71 days in “mating.”

On charges of promoting extremism and disorganizing the activities of colonies, the court sentenced him to 19 years of strict regime. According to Natalya, two of the three witnesses in the “extremist” case recanted their testimony in court. The third tried too, but he was stopped. The court did not take into account the mental state of the defendant and other circumstances related to his stay in the International Labor Inspectorate.

Zargaryan's lawyer refused to discuss the nuances of criminal cases, citing attorney-client privilege. But he expressed the opinion that his client “first of all needed normal treatment.” “He clearly didn’t feel any better about what they did to him at the MOTB,” the defender said.

Zargaryan's mother passed away from cancer in 2019.

“They were sent to the hospital for re-education”

“It’s hard to lie down. Haloperidol makes it feel like the whole body is being stretched out harshly. “Twists” his arms and neck, tightens his jaw,” is how prisoners describe their sensations during “mating.”

Journalists were able to talk to six former patients of the “psychiatry” MOTB-19. They all tell the same story: “You’re drooling, you can’t think of anything, but it’s impossible to fall asleep. You walk according to yourself, big and small, and so that you don’t walk, they hardly feed you. They give you broth and a couple of spoons of porridge. And that’s all - no meat, no eggs, no bread.”

Patients are tied with rope straps - their legs, wrists and chest are secured. The convicts say that it is impossible to move in this position. From constant lying down, the whole body becomes stiff, and later tissue necrosis develops - bedsores. They hurt a lot and take a long time to heal.

As ex-prisoner Igor Tkachenko recalls (the video recording of his return from the Moscow Medical Hospital is described at the beginning), he got into the “mating” after he refused to lie in the “tuberculosis and HIV” ward. According to him, patients who are already dying are put there, but he “has neither HIV nor tuberculosis, but he has children.”

Initially, the man came to the prison hospital for a hip replacement: he had chronic coxarthrosis. On the eve of the operation, a new person was moved into his room. Tkachenko claims that he was after the “mating”: “He showed us his back, and it was rotten right up to the spine. You could see the bone straight away - it had been lying there for so long.”

Impressed, Tkachenko suggested that his neighbor contact human rights activists and the prosecutor’s office. The man assumes that the IOTB administration found out about this and “got a bite.” After the operation, he was taken under anesthesia to the "tubo-vich", and when he woke up and hobbled into a regular ward, the orderlies came for him.

“They said that I was being transferred to psychiatry because of smoking in the ward,” says Igor Tkachenko. - They took me straight with catheters. They tied me up and started stabbing me right away, although there was no indication for this.”

The head of the Rostov Public Monitoring Committee, Igor Omelchenko, also heard similar stories. Prisoners told him that they could end up in prison for anything - because of a quarrel with the colony authorities, a financial debt, or complaints about the conditions of detention. The person was declared schizophrenic or “violent” and taken to the wards. Even those who were not sick at all and were not on a psychiatric register ended up there.

Two convicts serving time said that they ended up in psychiatry for “standing up for their rights in the zone.”

“The MOTB essentially sent prisoners for “re-education,” explains Igor Omelchenko. “As I understand it, this was agreed upon with almost all correctional institutions in the region. People were brought to “matings” from everywhere.”

Tkachenko, in his own words, received three injections a day with “ten cc” syringes at the MOTB. The injections were carried out by orderlies from among the same prisoners. They were kept in the wards for dirty work - taking out the duck, cleaning the room. But in reality, the assistants more often simply mocked the patients.

“Once they injected air into my vein. I said - what are you doing, the lump will fester. And they laughed,” the man recalls. “They spat on our plates; they could have hurt us for nothing.” In front of me, a tied up guy was beaten with a mop.”

Tkachenko himself also got it. He shows a scar on his stomach that runs along his body. We communicate via video link, the man is sitting in a chair, it is difficult for him to walk and stand. The scar was left after another operation performed at the MOTB. Once he was kicked so hard that the surgeon suspected a ruptured spleen.

“He opened my stomach to see what was there. Everything was fine. I sewed it back up, and they returned me to “mating,” says the man.

Hospital nurses changed his postoperative bandages without removing the straps. At the end of the week, the head physician Tigran Mkrtchyan came to visit.

The first time Tkachenko lay “on the fool” for 21 days. He got out of bed only once, “when they were carried on a stretcher for an x-ray.” Then he was sent to a colony. The former convict recalls that he arrived at the zone “like the plague.” In unconsciousness, he wanted one thing - to commit suicide - and he tried to do it, after which he was again taken to MOTB. And then this story repeated itself again.

“The third and final ‘treatment’ lasted 29 days,” he says. “Towards the end I thought I wouldn’t survive.” They didn't feed me at all. You don’t sleep all night, then suddenly you’re knocked out. Dawn. You can hear barrels of gruel rolling down the corridor. They’ll give you some porridge and then you’ll just lie there.” According to Tkachenko’s calculations, he lost 25 kilograms this month. His usual weight does not exceed 65 kg.

“After returning, the men in the barracks carried me to the sink and to the toilet in their arms. Everything has atrophied. I came to my senses only after six months,” he says.

Igor Tkachenko still feels the consequences of what happened. He is sure that he still has problems with walking because after the hip replacement he was not allowed to “diverge.” Constant lying down and hunger aggravated the problem.

“With my illness, I was not allowed to mate at all,” he laments. “How can I make a living now?”

Another prisoner complained that after psychiatry at MOTB he began to have stomach problems: “I’m 25 years old, and I already have a bunch of diseases,” he said. “In short, they took away a good amount of health.”

“This has never come up before”

In Russia, the use of measures of “physical restraint” of patients is regulated by law “On psychiatric care and guarantees of the rights of citizens during its provision.” It says that they are permissible only in cases where it is impossible to help in any other way. And only for the appropriate period of time.

“Physical restraint” is used to prevent the patient from being a danger to himself or others. The decision about mating is made by a psychiatrist. Its implementation must be constantly monitored by health workers, and all forms and times of “physical constraint” are recorded in medical documents.

В letter the former chief sanitary doctor of Russia, Gennady Onishchenko, dated December 26, 2002, emphasizes that “matings” are permissible for a “limited period.” It is prohibited to involve other patients for these purposes.

According to Igor Omelchenko, he and his colleagues knew before that the MOTB uses tying up prisoners. “We met such patients when visiting the wards,” says the chairman of the Public Monitoring Committee. But human rights activists decided that these were isolated cases and limited themselves to recommendations not to knit for a long time. Everything was “clean” in the log books.

Oleg Sokurenko, who was part of the Rostov PSC until 2016, claims that he and his colleagues did not receive any signals about systematic violations in MOTB-19: “There were complaints about the failure to provide medical care, but nothing like that came up.”

According to two former inmates who were admitted to the MOTB-19 psychiatry more than once during the 2010s, they began to “knit harshly” there about five years ago.

Igor Omelchenko gives the same assessment. The reasons for the deterioration of the situation are unknown to him - he joined the POC only in 2019. It is also unclear how many people ultimately went through the “mating.”

A source in the FSIN system, familiar with the situation in MOTB-19, estimates their probable number at “a hundred or more people.” He suggests that the number of patients who died after “mating” may not be limited to Roman Mikhailov alone.

“The consequences of long-term “constraint” can kill the patient indirectly, after leaving psychiatry. The initial diagnosis can be anything. But if he then ended up in a “mating” and from there went to intensive care, then formally the person died there. The body simply did not survive the underlying disease. As far as “medicine” is concerned, it’s purely filed here,” says the interlocutor, who asked for anonymity.

In response to a request, the press service of the Federal Penitentiary Service confirmed the initiation of a criminal case based on the materials of the CSS inspection. “Personnel changes have been made, a number of employees of the operational services of MOTB-19 have been dismissed,” the message says.

The former deputy head of the institution for security and operational work, Alexander Lyakh (according to Igor Omelchenko, the convicts more than once mentioned his name in the context of “mating”), said that there were no such abuses in the hospital.

“What is “knitting”? This is a soft fixation, which is required by the law on psychiatry,” he said. “It’s not like completely immobilizing a person.”

According to Lyakh, convicts were admitted to the psychiatric department only by court decision. No heads of the FSIN “could decide this themselves.”

“Detainees were also brought from the pre-trial detention center only for medical reasons. Before placing a patient in psychiatry, he is examined by specialists. You can’t just take a person and tell him: “You’re going to psychiatry.” This is complete nonsense. I'm ready to take a polygraph if necessary. Never in my life have I given any commands to tie someone up. I am an officer who has faithfully served the state for 25 years,” he claims.

He connects his dismissal with the fact that after the arrival of the new head of the Federal Penitentiary Service in the region, he had to “install his own people.”

The ex-chief of MOTB-19, Suleiman Gadzhikurbanov, said that the decision to fix prisoners was made only by “medical personnel.”

“They decided whether to breed or not, and how to treat their convicts. And our job was to feed, clothe, put on shoes - we took care of the material and living conditions,” he assures. Now Gadzhikurbanov is retired.

The former chief physician of MOTB-19 Tigran Mkrtchyan refused to answer questions. Judging by official website Don FSIN, now he is temporarily acting head of the entire Rostov medicalsanitary unit No. 61.

“The loss of humanity is a serious problem in the correctional system,” says Yuri Blokhin, associate professor of the department of criminal law disciplines at the South Russian Institute of RANEPA. Like Oleg Sokurenko, he was a member of the previous composition of the Rostov Public Monitoring Committee and was its deputy chairman. — Employees are gradually developing cynicism towards convicts. When you tell them about this, they often answer: “Do you know what he (the convicted person) did?” Therefore, examples of inhumane behavior are found everywhere in the FSIN system.”

With the help of the PMC, many violations can be eliminated, but in recent years it has become increasingly difficult for human rights defenders to work.

“Independent, active participants began to be eliminated from the system of public commissions. After recent amendments The law on POC has made it more difficult for human rights activists to communicate with prisoners without control from prison staff. It is difficult to obtain photographic and video evidence of violations. The procedure for electing members of the PMC itself is opaque and leaves room for manipulation of candidates. All this does not benefit public control in the country,” he explains.

As Omelchenko assures, today at MOTB everything works “within the norm.” Following the change in management, approaches to the treatment of psychiatric patients changed, and cameras were installed in the wards.

You may be interested in: top New York news, stories of our immigrants, and helpful tips about life in the Big Apple - read it all on ForumDaily New York.

“Some prisoners are still tied up, but for no more than two hours,” says the human rights activist. “We haven’t received any new complaints yet.”

After the story with Vazgen Zargaryan was revealed, he was sent “away from Rostov,” says his relative. The man is serving his sentence thousands of kilometers from this city. It took him almost six months to “at least come to his senses a little.”

“They told me that now he has almost no hallucinations,” Natalya rejoices. “He replays all the events in his head and says that he is simply shocked by what he did, what happened to him. He says it wasn’t him at all.”

“Of course, in three years his psyche was destroyed,” the woman sighs. “But he’s a different person now.” He is a strong boy and will definitely cope with everything.”

***

At the end of January in the Oktyabrsky District Court of Rostov started consideration of the case against endocrinologist MOTB-19 Lusine Grigoryan. She is accused of causing death by negligence to convicted Dmitry Baksheev, who in 2020 was a patient in a prison hospital.

According to investigators, Grigoryan allegedly prescribed Baksheev, who suffered from diabetes and tuberculosis, the wrong treatment - because of it, the level of glucose in his blood increased significantly, which led to death. At the same time, Baksheev was initially admitted to the tuberculosis-pulmonary department of the Moscow Regional Hospital, and was later transferred to a psychiatric hospital.

This is the third criminal case recently initiated in connection with the work of MOTB-19.

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