Dr. Martau: I Don’t Want to Turn the Page Just to Feed Myself

Nothing prevents us from being Germany in the medical sense.

A resuscitator from Vitsebsk, Uladzimir Martau, who was one of the first to speak honestly about COVID in Belarus and was fired, has not yet returned to work.

After his critical remarks about the organization of the work of hospitals during the pandemic - about the accident at the oxygen station of the Vitsebsk hospital and the death of patients - his contract was not renewed.

"I am not doing anything now. I have not been working for five months, taking care of my health a little bit. Now I live out of town," Martau said in an interview with nn.by. According to him, he feels calm "like on vacation": "I am sitting alone in the village, lighting fire."

Martau has not considered the question of moving to another country. He says it's a position of principle - he doesn't want to leave "as long as it's possible, as long as there's no threat to security."

"I had very funny arguments with my younger and more advanced colleagues - the same topic, which we constantly discussed from different sides. We talked about that, instead of going to Canada and making Belarus there, we can make Canada in Belarus," he said.

Now Martau is trying to collect his thoughts into a text, writes about what he has seen and what he has been thinking about recently. So far, he has analyzed the first wave of coronavirus. He says he was convinced that the Belarusian doctors would cope with the problem - after all, there was the experience of 2009, when the country experienced a swine flu epidemic, and "it was quite difficult and scary."

“I had the illusion that we can also cope with COVID, what is the problem? And when we just blew it... the question arose, which we were also discussing with young colleagues in the resident rooms: why aren't we Germany? And I don't understand why. After all, nothing prevents us from being Germany in the medical sense. But we are not Germany, not even close. We have done the opposite. And it's incomprehensible," says the medic.

He recalls that the hospital was simply forbidden to prepare professionally for COVID since the decision was made:" It's okay, we will survive, nothing needs to be done." According to Martau, this is not professional.

Martau says he was offered a job. But he does not want to go abroad, and part-time jobs to sit out are not suitable for him.

“I don’t want to turn the page in order to just feed myself. This is my slogan,” the doctor confesses.

He did not try to get a job in state medical institutions, therefore, he does not know if his name is on the "black list." He says he is not ready to go back into the system yet.

“After all, you will need to join a trade union, donate money to the Red Cross, subscribe to newspapers... I will have to plunge into a system that is definitely not about medicine. And, to be honest, it's just indecent. And I really don't want to face this again," Uladzimir Martau says.