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The End Stage of the Belarusian Healthcare Service

77
The End Stage of the Belarusian Healthcare Service
Iryna Khalip

"And where did you see news?, my fellow Illya asked me on Skype.

I told him the late news about interruption in deliveries of medicines and test systems for the HIV-infected.

"This problem has always been urgent. There were no test systems at all or beyond their expiration date. Now there’s a surprise. Do you know how they use these tests in Belarus? They take one test system for 50 portions of blood. Because this is deficiency," the fellow said.

Illya and me used to study in a junior school and shared the same desk. We still keep in touch. But, unfortunately, only virtually now. In 2009 Illya left for Sweden to save his own life. He was not followed by the police and was not subject to arrest. Illya has the HIV. He's been diagnosed with it 12 years ago. In 2009 he was informed about the end stage. In other words, it was the end. He was told that only two months left.

And then he decided to escape from the death. Because in Europe - all HIV-infected knew it - there were more chances to survive. Much more, if to be more exact.

I will not add anything about the difference of Belarusian and European attitude towards treatment of the HIV and patients themselves. I just quote his story. However, there will be something I would like to add: after treatment in Sweden the virus is not detected in his blood.

"For years we have been treated with old medicines, which were not used anymore in the world. I came to Sweden with six kilos of drugs just in case. When a local Swedish doctor saw them, he asked:

–How long have you been using it?

- Two years already, I say.

- You should have already been dead.

In three months doctors said: "You were in condition when we could not predict the treatment. Frankly speaking, we thought you would die in two months." The same I heard from a doctor in the infectious disease ward of Minsk. In Sweden I was explained that these medicines were rejected in 1996!

As soon as I was diagnosed the end stage, there was already nothing left which could help me in Belarus. And I tried to survive. At homeland I really had two months. And when I came to a professor, I guess his name was Aliaksandr Mikhailavich, and said I was leaving for Sweden, he started a happy dance. He said: "Illya, you cannot even imagine how glad I am." He understood that Europe was the last chance for me.

By the way, I am having another treatment, as soon as my analyses have showed no virus. And now I am promised to have less drugs, everything is ok. Finally, I feel like an ordinary person. You know, I have started catching a cold. Snots are of the nature of a healthy person, remember it. As long as I took pills at home, I had nothing of the kind, but I felt awful. Those drugs I was treated with in Belarus caused wild pains: I felt like I ate glass. I have no complaints against Belarusian doctors: they are really trying to do their best. But they can prescribe things available in Belarus. Otherwise, one which kills us. My doctors said: "Look, we cannot combine drugs, because there is nothing to combine." The Ministry of Health procures all the same one for everyone, although everyone has a different form, as well as the different stage. Is it normal to treat initial and the end stage with the same drugs? In Europe they combine drugs and chose them for everyone. When I returned to Minsk in 2012 and dropped into the infectious disease ward doctors said: we will lose 80% of those who are called the HIV-infected.

Many patients from the province were trying to force the path to Minsk because there was an infectious diseases hospital with a special ward. District hospitals have neither such wards nor specialists. The do not understand what they are trying to cure. And everyone wanted to meet with Alena Mikhailauna, the chief of the department. She visited seminars abroad a few times. I was in the hospital when she returned from other business trip. She said: "When you look on the way they treat in Europe, then you understand how poor we are. We have three pills, and there will be nothing more. And there they do marvels." And after two years in Sweden I showed my results to Alena Mikhailauna she could only say: "Which was to be proved."

In Sweden I was ordered to throw out all the medicines I used to take in Belarus. By the way, not a doctor, but a council of physicians prescribes drugs for everyone and only for two weeks. And watch the reaction and then take another decision. You say that Belarus produce their own drugs... I can only imagine what they can produce...

In Russia people, I think, just die. They use medications beyond their expiration date. And those who want to survive have to buy them at their own expense. But it is possible to buy them there. Not like in Belarus. In Sweden I do not pay for medications. But I see bills of 5-6- thousand kroner, by the way.

By the way, one day I was waiting for the decision of the migration service and it could be negative, my attending physician Maria broke her vacation, and flew home from Norway to prescribe me drugs for six months. If I was deported at least I would take normal drugs during that period. Here, in Sweden, the illegals with the HIV are treated for free.

I remember the first time when I was in the hospital in Minsk. They came to me wearing chemical protection suits. There was a bucket, which I had to clean with bleachб the second bucket was for food wastes and the third was for soaking dishes. I used to clean them with bleach as well. And then I managed to see the head physician. I put my arm on the table and she yelled at me and started pouring chemicals on the table.

However, Alena Mikhailauna, the chief of the department, doctor Natallia Antonovna Rossa, nurses were good to patients. They were not scared, because they understood the way our state treated the disease, as well as the society. They taught me: "Do not tell anyone about the HIV. I'd better say you have hepatitis B, precautions are the same." They are wonderful and they really want to help their patients. But they do not have possibilities. The government creates obstacles. It would prefer we all would die as soon as possible".

Iryna Khalip, especially for charter97.org

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