At the end of January, in the city clinical diagnostic center of St. Petersburg (GKDTS No. 1), three people died after an x-ray of the stomach.
According to investigators, the cause of death was low-quality barium sulfate, which is used to increase the contrast of images. When these stories were made public, it became known that there had been several similar deaths at the center as early as December.
Anna Rechinskaya, daughter of one of the victims, told “Rain” that her mother came for an x-ray at the GKDC No. 1 on December 24th. According to Anna, the woman fell ill in the X-ray room: she began to feel sick and she “barely ran to the toilet.” After that, Anna’s mother was taken to the Elizabethan Hospital, where she died on the night of December 24-25. The autopsy results listed heart failure as the cause of death. After the New Year holidays, Anna sent a request to the GKDC No. 1 to get an X-ray report, but she was given only the results. On January 20, Anna herself came to the center and demanded the necessary documents.
“She promised me that she would give these documents, and I left with the hope that I would get at least something. And on January 26, I learned from the news about several patients who died after X-rays, and everything worked out for me, ”says Anna. On January 26, two similar deaths of patients who had X-rays at the GKDC No. 1, a 60-year-old woman and a 42-year-old man, are known. Two more people were taken to the hospital – soon one woman died.
On January 28, it became known about more than 20 victims, and the Investigative Committee opened a criminal case under articles on causing death by negligence (part 3 of article 109 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation) and storage of medical goods that do not meet safety requirements (part 3 of article 238 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation ). On the same day, Dmitry Lisovets, head of the St. Petersburg Health Committee, said that the committee had identified all the patients who were x-rayed at the center on January 24–25. But, as it turned out, there were deaths back in December, and Anna Rechinskaya’s mother was not the only one.
On December 23, Tatyana Andreeva had an X-ray of her stomach at the State Children’s Children’s Center No. 1 due to suspected gastritis. Upon returning home, she began to feel sick, tachycardia began. She called an ambulance and made a phone call, and after half an hour she stopped communicating. That same evening her niece came to Andreeva and found her dead. The woman was given the same cause of death as Anna Rechinskaya’s mother – heart failure.
Another deceased after the X-ray of the GKDC No. 1 in December is 74-year-old Evgenia Volodina. After the procedure, she felt sick with “some kind of white substance,” says Evgenia’s son Nikolai. Medics were unable to save the woman. The autopsy results indicated that the cause of death was heart failure.
Relatives of the three who died in December turned to the UK, and as Rechinskaya says, they were very surprised to learn about these deaths.
By information of the Joint Press Service of the Courts of St. Petersburg, the investigation believes that the head physician of the institution, Popov, approved the application for the purchase of the drug “Barium sulfate 0.10 (H2O)%”, which was used for procedures, from NevaReaktiv LLC. On the company’s Instagram page, a passport of this drug was published with a conclusion on compliance with GOST.
The head of the radiology department, Elena Medvedeva, according to the investigation, “being a qualified doctor and knowing for certain that the drug“ Barium sulfate 0.10 (H2O)% “is not a drug, organized its use by the staff.”
According to chemists, medical barium (0.05 (H2O)%) is impossible to be fatally poisoned. With fluoroscopy, it envelops the mucous membrane of the stomach and intestines, allows doctors to see a clear picture, but it is not absorbed and is completely eliminated from the body through the gastrointestinal tract. And industrial barium is toxic, absorbed by the body and disrupts the functioning of internal organs.
Procurement of medicines for state medical institutions must follow a strict procedure through a single portal. However, Dozhd was not able to find on this portal the contracts of GKDC No. 1 either for the purchase of barium sulfate separately, or for purchases in general from the NevaReaktiv company.
Anastasia Lapunova of Transparency International Russia explained that tracking the purchases of regional medical facilities can be difficult, and sometimes impossible. First, the federal Ministry of Health purchases drugs directly from the supplier, and then distributes them to regional departments. The federal purchase can be found on the portal, but the subsequent distribution is likely regulated by internal decrees of the Ministry of Health, which are not publicly available. When asked by Dozhd about the center’s procurement, Tatyana Martynenkova, a representative of the commission that selects suppliers and maintains documentation, replied that she did not comment.
“Usually, procurement is handled centrally by health authorities, but medical institutions have the right to conduct procurement on their own,” explains Larisa Popovich, director of the HSE Institute of Health Economics. In her opinion, in the case of GKDC No. 1, the procurement was not centralized. “Probably they ran out of this barium sulfate and made their purchase. And the supplier who came, perhaps, simply did not know the requirements [к препарату] and saw what seemed to be the product that he was able to deliver,” she says.