The Ministry of Health recorded almost a thousand attacks on health workers in six months

Health Minister Mikhail Murashko reported that in the first half of 2023 alone, 820 cases of violence against health workers were recorded. Of these, 270 cases are classified as physical violence, including 30 dangerous to life and health, and 150 are classified as mental violence. The department has created a special working group to analyze cases of attack. However, according to officials, there is no need to change the current legislation. Social activists and deputies do not agree with this position. They have been proposing for years to give doctors the same right to protection that police officers have.

The Russian Ministry of Health began to analyze numerous cases of attacks on doctors – for this, at the end of 2022, a special working group was created “to reduce the risk of violence against medical workers while performing their official duties.” Health Minister Mikhail Murashko announced this in a letter to the head of the Duma Committee on Health Protection Badme Bashankaev (ER) in response to his request, the publication reported “Medvestnik”.

Mr. Murashko plans that the obtained statistics “will be used when the Ministry of Health develops proposals for the introduction of additional organizational, technical and other means of protecting medical workers from attacks for implementation in the activities of medical organizations.”

The head of the medical department said that monitoring of cases of violence against health workers is carried out in accordance with the “classifier” of such cases developed by the Ministry of Health. The following groups are distinguished: physical violence, mental violence, other types of violent actions (insults, shouting, snatching things from hands, damage to property, actions expressing clear disrespect).

An interim analysis showed that in the first half of 2023 alone, 820 cases of violence against health workers were recorded. Of these, 270 cases are classified as physical violence, including 30 dangerous to life and health, mental violence – 150, and other types of violent actions – 400.

The largest number of cases of violence against health workers was noted in the Omsk, Oryol, Novosibirsk, Chelyabinsk regions, as well as in Moscow.

The Ministry of Health believes that the commission of crimes against doctors is already “covered by the current norms of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation,” however, “protective measures are not fully implemented by both medical organizations and law enforcement agencies.” Previously, Badma Bashankaev received a similar response from the Prosecutor General’s Office, where he also sent a request about attacks on medical workers committed since August 2019 and about measures to protect them. Then the prosecutor’s office stated that “the existing legal regulation provides sufficient opportunity to impose a fair punishment” and “there are no proposals to improve legislation in this area.”

Badma Bashankaev previously pointed out that almost every day news comes from different regions of the country about an attack on emergency doctors and emergency room doctors.

Thus, in the village of Ishtan, Krivosheinsky district, a local resident dismembered a paramedic who came to the call on foot. About this on September 26 reported in the Investigative Committee of the Investigative Committee for the Tomsk Region. The deceased was the only doctor in the entire village; her body was found in the forest with numerous injuries. The police detained the suspect. According to him, the paramedic came to help his friend, but soon a conflict broke out, during which he killed the woman.

“It seems that not all cases are registered in the ambulance. There are various reasons for this. A weak legislative framework, the inaction of law enforcement officers, and the attackers get off with a fine of 500–1500 rubles, the reluctance of the heads of local health ministries to wash dirty linen in public. And so on,” wrote Badma Bashankaev. “Let me remind you that only about 40% of ambulance teams go in a mixed composition – a man and a woman. More often than not, these are fragile female brigades.” According to him, it is necessary to “fundamentally change society’s position towards such vile manifestations of inappropriate behavior.”

Co-chairman of the trade union of medical workers “Action” Andrei Konoval also believes that only a tenth of the crimes committed against medical workers reach law enforcement agencies and the public. He says that for doctors, especially ambulance workers and local police officers, this is “not some kind of phantom threat, but a dangerous reality.” The union believes that it is necessary to introduce a separate criminal liability for attacks on doctors, and in addition, adequate compensation as a result of harm – both physical and moral. “The doctor must be protected, and his figure, to some extent, must be sacred, and his safety must be formalized by special standards,” says Mr. Konoval.

Deputy head of the Health Protection Committee Sergei Leonov (LDPR) believes that doctors and hospital staff should be protected in the same way as representatives of the Ministry of Internal Affairs while on duty. Social activists and deputies have repeatedly proposed such changes in legislation. In 2017, after a wave of attacks on doctors, the Ministry of Health introduced a bill equating doctors to police officers to parliament. Subsequently, it was “replaced with another, less categorical one,” and the article “Obstruction of the provision of medical care” was introduced into criminal and administrative legislation, Andrei Konoval told Kommersant.

According to Mr. Konoval, it all came down to the fact that only citizens whose illegal actions prevented a doctor from providing assistance can be held accountable. In practice, he argues, this measure does not work.

In May 2021 bill, proposing to grant doctors the right of immunity by analogy with police officers and military personnel, has already been submitted to the State Duma by A Just Russia. The Ministry of Health did not support him.

Natalia Kostarnova