Dissident doctors’ initiative warns crackdown spells trouble for healthcare

January 2, BPN. Belarusian healthcare has lost professionals to politically-motivated persecution, a source with Belye Chalaty (White Coats), an opposition media outlet for health sector workers, told BPN.

It will have a negative impact on healthcare which may take long to recover even after the political regime falls, said the activist, speaking on the condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal.

“We are heading towards a humanitarian disaster when the healthcare is reduced to flashy numbers in bogus reports,” the expert said, noting that Belarus has lost medical professionals whose training and experience will be difficult to replace.

“It is easy to notice that a physician is absent, but the patient might not be aware that a hospital does not have an equipment repair engineer, making it impossible to fix medical equipment, such as ventilators,” he added.

Reports say that authorities fired more than 200 healthcare workers in 2021 and 2022 for political reasons, but the real losses might be a lot higher.