Parents should not be barred from Russian children’s hospitals

by Natalia Antonova at 15/04/2013 14:54

The Moscow News

This week, politician and journalist Maria Gaidar posted a note on her blog urging a children's hospital in Tushino to reform its visitation rules - parents are allowed to visit their sick children just twice a week, for half an hour.

Municipal deputy Maxim Katz supported Gaidar in her criticism of the hospital and sent a request for an explanation to the Moscow Department of Health.

The issue here isn't just one hospital's individual policy, however. Across Russia, sick children are routinely separated from their parents and are subject to the most draconian rules regarding visitation.

The situation with many pediatric intensive care units is particularly dire. According to an investigation done by Bolshoi Gorod magazine into certain pediatric intensive care units in Moscow, parents of dying children aren't even allowed in to say goodbye.

In one heart-breaking story told by Bolshoi Gorod, a mother went all the way to the top echelons of the city administration to gain some kind of access to her terminally ill infant. The administration refused to help, citing laws that allow hospitals to set their own rules in order to curb the spread of infection and not disrupt the work of doctors and nurses. The mother was allowed to hold her dying son's hand only by special permission from the hospital authorities, after wearing them down over time.

There are three key factors at play here. First of all, most facilities are not spacious or modern enough to allow for comfortable visits. Second of all, there is the repeated assumption that all visitors "spread disease" (in spite of increasing evidence that most dangerous bugs thrive within hospital walls, as opposed to outside) and hospitals are not prepared to handle issues of hygiene effectively.

Third and most important of all, most hospital administrators still have a Soviet mindset when it comes to children in particular - the idea that parents of sick children just get in the way. Parents are hysterical, and must be removed. 

Yet according to the World Health Organization, children, particularly small children, experience a great deal of stress when separated from their parents while sick. This stress, in turn, slows down the healing process.  The WHO findings revolutionized the way children's hospitals operate in the West.

It's time for Russian hospitals to start catching up. It may be a difficult process, but it will be worth it.

Russia ready to step up fight against China bird flu

by at 15/04/2013 10:47

The Moscow News

Russia is preparing to enhance sanitary control measures in case the situation over the bird flu in China deteriorates, Russia's chief sanitary doctor Gennady Onishchenko said on Sunday.

“The World Health Organization (WHO) has not yet given recommendations for quarantine, and now we are not introducing prohibitive measures but we are just paying increased attention [to the issue]. But if the process spreads, we will enhance appropriate measures in this situation,” Onishchenko said.

China reported 11 fresh cases of infections of H7N9 avian flu on Sunday, which bring the total number of the reported cases to 60. Two more people have died in China from a new strain of bird flu, raising the death toll to 13. The official Xinhua news agency said the two deaths were reported in Shanghai.

“We still cannot understand the mechanism of the disease as there is practically no contact with poultry in big cities. As H7N9 has been always transmitted to humans through birds, and we need to study the [problem] seriously,” he said.

Chinese health authorities have so far treated the infections as isolated cases and ruled out human-to-human transmission.

However, a fresh report by a team of Chinese experts, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, indicates that H7N9 causes unusually severe respiratory infection, sepsis and brain damage, and appears to be resistant to vaccination and treatment.

Experts also believe that the new virus has a high potential to cause a pandemic.

China has already taken various steps to curb the spread of H7N9 infections, including suspension of live poultry trade in affected areas, slaughter and incineration of poultry, and publicity campaigns among the population.