NOVOSIBIRSK, Russia ? The wrong prescription, the ridiculous diagnosis, the ill-equipped ambulance, the hospitals that wouldn?t accept him, the doctor who wouldn?t let her see him after he was dead. The treatment of her 11-month-old son Maxim, and the way he died, are why Darya Makarova decided she had to do something about the incompetence and callousness of Russian health care, to take a stand and mount a campaign.
And in a country with a million unhappy stories, hers struck a chord.
Thousands have turned out for her rallies, written letters, signed petitions or joined in Internet forums. Since Maxim?s death in November, she has already raised the money to reopen a children?s clinic, with an emergency room, in her community. She has shamed the city into buying three new ambulances, with proper equipment. She has launched a nonprofit organization, Health Care for Children, that has national ambitions.
Politicians have sought her out. Pavel Astakhov, who holds the newly created of children?s ombudsman, came from Moscow to see her ? and then appointed her his unpaid deputy, giving her more access and clout. Even officials from the sprawling and notoriously indifferent Health Ministry started to pay attention.
Makarova, who just turned 29, is determined to shake up the system from the outside, from the grass-roots level. That goes deeply against the grain here, where the idea of civil society gets a frosty reception at best, and where activists are more likely to get beaten up than listened to. But she?s one of a rising generation of passionate Russians who, in fields ranging from business corruption to the environment, are rejecting the passivity of their elders.
?Several thousand Russian people have come together and said, ?Enough! It?s time to do something,?�? she says. She hopes she can turn that into several million Russian people. ?People are tired. Tired of everything.?
Russians are especially tired of the pitiful public spending on health care (about $500 per person annually), and the corruption that pervades the system. Budgets are opaque, the cost of equipment is suspiciously high, salaries are pitifully low. A new study commissioned by the Russian government suggests that health is the most corrupt field in the country.
Though medical care is supposed to be free, demoralized doctors demand under-the-table payments from their patients. Hospitals try to avoid difficult cases, like Maxim?s. They have no incentive to do otherwise.
When Makarova couldn?t awaken her son the morning of Nov. 10, her options were few. The pediatric clinic in his neighborhood had been converted into a for-profit adult treatment center. Hospitals nearby wouldn?t admit him. The ambulance that came for him, from 20 miles away, was in service despite failing its road test, and had no equipment for treating infants. The hospital that finally accepted him, and where he died two days later, was built in 1913, and was falling apart.
?I hate this country,? Makarova?s mother told her, and immigrated to England.
Source: http://feeds.washingtonpost.com/click.phdo?i=ef23173e71485eb71441789c48af6973
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