At the beginning of July, the selection of jurors for the scandalous case of doctors Elina Sushkevich and Elena Belaya should continue. Women are accused of premeditated murder of a newborn in Kaliningrad Maternity Hospital No. 4 in November 2018.
The criminal prosecution against doctors began more than a year and a half ago and caused a violent reaction from the Russian medical community. In particular, Leonid Roshal, president of the Research Institute of Emergency Pediatric Surgery and Traumatology, repeatedly expressed support for physicians - in his opinion, investigators involved in the case of Beloy and Sushkevich “worked unprofessionally,” and the examination, the results of which formed the basis of the charge, needs to be repeated.
On June 12, at the ceremony of presenting the golden stars of Hero of Labor, Roshal raised this topic, asking Vladimir Putin to pay attention to the case of Kaliningrad doctors. He stated that such processes “have not been in Russia since 1953,” and stated his readiness to personally speak at a court hearing in the case of Belaya and Sushkevich.
“I do not want to put pressure on the court, but I want to say that I am ready to speak there and explain why this is all wrong,” said Roshal.
On the same day, the head of the Investigative Committee of Russia, Alexander Bastrykin, instructed the employees of the central apparatus of the UK to study and report to him the circumstances established during the investigation of this criminal case.
In an official statement published on the SK website, it is specified that the verification will be carried out as part of departmental procedural control, without interfering with the competence of the court.
Investigation version
The investigation against doctors began in November 2018 after a newborn child died in maternity hospital No. 4 of Kaliningrad. According to the investigation, the acting the chief physician, Elena Belaya, allegedly ordered a heavily premature baby to be given a lethal dose of magnesium sulfate, which led to the death of the baby - while in the history of childbirth it was written that he died in the womb.
According to investigators, Belaya was almost sure that the newborn would not survive and die in the hospital, which would worsen the infant mortality rate and could prevent her from becoming the head physician. Investigators claim that in connection with this, Belaya presented the situation as if the child was already dead.
“These circumstances are confirmed by the findings of the commission of a comprehensive forensic medical examination on the cause of the death of the child, spectrographic and other examinations, the testimony of an eyewitness who was present at the time of the murder, as well as a combination of other evidence gathered in the case,” the ICR press service reported.
Elena Belaya was detained on November 15, 2018, and anaesthesiologist-resuscitator Elina Sushkevich - in June 2019. Subsequently, they were charged as the organizer and perpetrator of the killing, respectively. Now women are awaiting trial while under house arrest (the Kaliningrad Regional Court on April 30, 2020 extended this measure of restraint until October 17). Defenders of the accused asked for a jury trial.
Doctors Version
The court forbade Belaya and Sushkevich to communicate with the press. But the lawyers of the doctors in an interview with RT emphasized that their clients did not plead guilty to the alleged crimes, and also outlined their versions of what happened in November 2018.
So, Elena Belaya’s lawyer Mikhail Zakharov recalled that a woman in labor (a citizen of Uzbekistan) was admitted to maternity hospital No. 4 at the 23-24th week of pregnancy “in very serious condition”. Prior to that, she, according to the lawyer, had not been examined by doctors and was not registered in the antenatal clinic (according to the investigators and as the woman in labor stated, she was observed in maternity hospital No. 1).
“The woman arrived in the absence of Elena Belaya, at about 3-4 in the morning,” says the lawyer. “In such a difficult situation, doctors should not have taken a woman in labor in this institution, she had to be sent to the perinatal center, which was not done.”
“As a result, the doctors called for resuscitation care, but due to the fact that the woman was not promptly transferred to the perinatal center, premature birth began, as a result of which an absolutely unviable baby was born,” Zakharov explains.
According to him, the newborn weighed only 718 grams. And about. The chief physician, Elena Belaya, called from the regional perinatal center a resuscitation team led by Elina Sushkevich, so that the baby would be transported to a specialized institution. But it was no longer possible to transport the child. The doctors who arrived at the hospital for several hours tried to save the child, but to no avail.
According to the instructions, in such cases it is prescribed to connect the baby to the ventilator and administer the Kurosurf preparation so that the lungs begin to work. Earlier, RT wrote that initially the doctors were accused of the fact that they “regretted” the necessary drug. Subsequently, however, it turned out that the child was given the right medicine.
The version that the baby died as a result of an overdose of magnesium sulfate, which the doctors allegedly intentionally gave him, appeared at the investigation later, notes Mikhail Zakharov.
The lawyers of the doctors also do not agree with the motives for the crime attributed to their client - killing a child for the sake of improving statistics. According to them, the mortality of the newborn during and after childbirth did not in any way affect either the statistics of this medical institution or bonus payments.
- Elina Sushkevich
- © elina.sushkevich
Examination and magnesium in the body of the child
In the course of the investigation, several forensic examinations were carried out in relation to Belaya and Sushkevich. According to Mikhail Zakharov, initially medical examiners concluded that the child died as a result of deep prematurity. However, the investigation insisted on a new study, the lawyer claims, and this examination found that the child’s body had an increased content of magnesium, and also found that the substance was allegedly introduced to the child by doctors.
The results of the examination, which linked the death of a child with an abnormal magnesium content in his body, did not inspire confidence among representatives of many Russian medical organizations, which defended colleagues from Kaliningrad.
In particular, the chairman of the Russian Society of Neonatologists Vladimir Ionov, in a conversation with RT, expressed the opinion that the examination could be carried out incorrectly.
“The position of our society of neonatologists is that we see the problems of this examination, the problems in the details of this case, and this is an ambiguous thing. It is difficult for us to allow the idea that (child. - RT ) was intentionally harmed. He was initially in serious condition, and by the time of the arrival of Elina (Sushkevich. - RT ), he was already practically not viable, ”the source said.
The Russian Society of Neonatologists emphasize that a chemical examination of the organs of a dead baby was carried out five months after his death, while the baby’s blood and urine were not examined in principle. Only the tissues of the deceased child were sent for analysis, although in the domestic literature there are no standards for the concentration of magnesium in the tissues of newborns and premature babies.
According to neonatologists, experts compared the results of analyzes of the newborn with indicators of an adult healthy person, which could lead them to incorrect conclusions.
“In children, the standards of most laboratory indicators are completely different from those in adults, they cannot be compared. In foreign scientific medical journals published information on the average concentrations of magnesium in the tissues of newborns. When comparing the concentrations of magnesium in the tissues of a deceased child with these data, it is obvious that the child had a magnesium content in the tissues 1.5-2 times lower than the average for infants ... Therefore, the deceased child, on the contrary, experienced a deficiency of magnesium, ”explained RT in the Russian society of neonatologists.
Community support
The criminal prosecution of Kaliningrad doctors provoked indignation in Russian medical circles. In support of Belaya and Sushkevich many experts and medical organizations, charity foundations spoke out. All of them require an objective and thorough investigation against doctors.
The chairman of the Moscow Medical Union, Sergei Remizov, also insists on this. In an interview with RT, he expressed the opinion that special commissions consisting of leading experts in the relevant field of medicine should deal with such investigations.
“Only a highly qualified community, academic professors who are competent in this field, should evaluate the activity of a particular doctor. Therefore, we advocated the creation of an additional commission, which should consist of professionals. First you need to objectively understand the situation, and then make a verdict, ”said Remizov.
In support of the doctors, their former patients who launched a flash mob with hashtags # my doctor Elina Sushkevich and # save life were also in favor. A petition published on change.org demanding an objective investigation into the Sushkevich-Beloy case at the time of publication of this material received nearly 250 thousand signatures.