A resident of the Moscow region sued ambulance doctors for changing shifts

The team decided to change while transporting a patient with a heart attack

A resident of the Moscow region sued the regional ambulance for 300,000 in compensation, accusing doctors of not providing urgent assistance to her mother. Instead of taking a woman with a heart attack to the hospital, doctors first stopped at the station for a shift change.

As MK learned, three years ago, a resident of one of the cities near Moscow, Olga (all names have been changed), called an ambulance for her mother Anna. It was New Year’s Eve, early in the morning the pensioner suddenly felt unwell. She began to have chest pains, nausea, and a stomach ache. The arriving team, consisting of a doctor and a paramedic, gave Anna’s mother an ECG and diagnosed her with a myocardial infarction. The doctors told the daughter that the mother needed to be hospitalized. But since the shift of this team had already ended, the doctors decided to first return to the station for a shift change, which they did. Anna was in the car all this time, and with a new team she went to the Zhukovsky hospital. On the territory of the medical facility, the pensioner’s heart suddenly stopped. They were able to resuscitate her, but two days later the woman still died. The daughter of the deceased accused the ambulance doctors of her mother’s death and through the court demanded monetary compensation for moral damage. The Orekhovo-Zuevsky City Court requested an independent examination of the doctors’ actions. The experts concluded that the care provided at home was carried out correctly, but the pensioner’s diagnosis required immediate transport to the hospital. According to the order of the Ministry of Health, a patient with a heart attack “is subject to mandatory medical evacuation to a specialized department as soon as possible.” And changing the shift of the medical team during a call, which causes an extension of the evacuation time, is unacceptable.

The examination also revealed violations in the maintenance of medical records; in particular, doctors did not reflect the patient’s condition during her transportation to the hospital. Because of this, it is impossible to find out whether Anna’s well-being changed during this period. On this basis, the judge decided to partially satisfy the claim of the deceased’s daughter. Ambulance was ordered to pay Olga 300,000 rubles in compensation for moral damages (initially the plaintiff requested 1,500,000 rubles).