vlad.tribnet.com / Issue #152 / Social life / Reading article...

The psychiatric hospital and other medical facilities are receiving no city money. The staff is aware of the problem. By the time all the patients are, it may be too late.

They shamble along with Dr. Vladimir Ushakov as he traverses the hallway of the men’s unit at the Vladivostok City Psychiatric Hospital – the crewcut man in a shabby gray shirt, the former physicist in a bathrobe, the intense young man with pellucid eyes who calls out in English, “Welcome to hell.”

Others emerging from their rooms join the men in an anxious procession as Ushakov, the head of the clinic, shows the ward to a pair of journalists. The halls are airy and light, but chain link covers the windows, and in bedrooms patients twitch blankets beneath girlie pictures on the walls.

The men close in, importuning the visitors. These are the violent patients, the doctor has cautioned. Thus he tries to present a calm face at all times. Yet today these men are not so much angry as demanding; they want to be heard.

A tall unshaven man lurches forward and says, “Mayor Cherepkov and I have a different approach to life.”

He says, “My name is Vadim, and I am an officer of the Cossacks.”

Grabbing your sleeve, he says: “My aunt is the great-, great-grandchild of King George V.”

Their hospital is scaling back its psychiatric care, and these patients may soon be out on the streets. It has released 25 percent of the 520 patients it had at the start of the year. The city, which once funded the hospital, cut off revenue in July, and now there is no money for food or medicine, Ushakov says.

It is part of a greater crisis in medical care since funding was cut off aid to the hospital and five maternity clinics. The city and private businesses pay money for the poor and unemployed into the Compulsory Medical Insurance Fund, but the hospitals haven’t received the money. Somewhere in the chain of payments a link is broken, a city spokesman says.

But spokeswoman Lyudmila Kiry says the fund isn’t responsible for such hospitals under a krai directive;. the city should be paying.

Vitaly Melnikov, chief physician of Maternity Clinic No. 1, says maternity clinics have been hard hit. Some 1.5 billion rubles ($254,000) were recently given to bail out medical institutions of Vladivostok, he says, but maternity wards weren’t included.

“We appealed to the Duma and to [Presidential Representative Victor] Kondratov, but nobody wants to get involved,” Melnikov says.

The ward reduced meals for its patients to “1 1/2 meals a day” (breakfast and a small lunch). Women share medications so there’s some to go around for everyone. The clinic charges 50,000 to 100,000 rubles entrance fee, but many can’t pay. The clinic takes everyone who needs its services, including homeless women sleeping in train stations.

Six nurses have resigned, but the doctors have no other place to go. “The staff has sued me for not paying their salary,” Melnikov says. (The hearing hasn’t yet happened.)

In the psychiatric hospital, patients are fed by relatives who donate food or money, and a former patient who now runs a store donates food. The staff isn’t being paid, and a nurse approached Ushakov in tears and asked for a little money to help bury her sister.

A sign just inside the hospital door pleads, “Dear Relatives: Because of the difficult state of the hospital, please help with money for meals and food if you can.” Adds Ushakov, “When people become hungry they become angry. And the biggest problem is lack of medication.”

The psychiatric hospital has enough pills for patients, but it cannot afford medications needed to inject the men and women there. This is necessary when a patient is unconscious or violent and can’t swallow pills.

In the women’s ward, Natalia wanders about in a bathrobe. She has been sick for six years – hearing voices, fending off visits by aliens, showing no control over her sexual impulses. But Natalia isn’t getting the full treatment she needs.

“There’s not enough medicine for me,” she says.

Ushakov worries that poor nutrition will harm his patients’ physical state – and perhaps hinder recovery.

Back in the men’s ward, Vadim persists on making his case. He says, “Since 1982, they used me to make flour. So now it’s not me; my head is flour.”

He looks around as if defying anyond to contradict him. He begins offering crossword clues for words no one has ever heard of in any language. He says, “Commander of aviation. Six letters. N-I-Ch-E-K.” Ushakov gently says, “Let’s go now.”

In a melancholy way you could almost call Vadim lucky. He is blithely unaware how close he may be to being turned out on the streets.