The Shabalinsk Central District Hospital was fined 1.8 million rubles for the death of a patient.

      It was this fact that the chief physician of the clinic, Alexey Bastrakov, used to convince the court that awarding compensation for moral damages to the relatives of the deceased would increase the hospital's debt and... "would negatively affect the treatment of other patients."

      On April 13, the Oktyabrsky District Court granted the claims of two sisters of 49-year-old Vyacheslav Kochkin — Ekaterina and Yulia — against the Shabalinskaya Central District Hospital and the Ministry of Health for "compensation for moral harm," awarding each a payment of 600,000 rubles. Earlier, on March 4, the Kirov Regional Court ordered the Central District Hospital to compensate the moral suffering of the elder sister Olga in the same amount.

      Recall that on February 17, Vyacheslav Kochkin went to the district hospital complaining of burning in his chest and, after three hours of waiting — from 8:00 to 11:00 — was examined by doctor Nina Klepcha in front of the therapist's office. She immediately diagnosed "gastritis" because he had eaten chips the day before, and only after long persuasion from Vyacheslav's wife did she refer him for an ECG.

      However, Klepcha, who worked as an ophthalmologist before starting her therapeutic practice, did not look closely at the ready ECG, probably not understanding what the peaks of the heart muscle's rhythm graph were indicating. And Nina Ivanovna does not know how to use the computer where the patient's history indicates hypertension. Meanwhile, the sinusoidal ECG "literally screamed," as the paramedics who arrived "on a corpse" later stated, about the developing heart attack.

      Interestingly, the chief physician of the hospital, most likely analyzing the same ECG, claimed in court that "the patient could not be saved," as his "heart began to decompose." Apparently, Bastrakov believed that he was justifying "a very good doctor," according to his claims, Nina Klepcha and her diagnosis: after all, Kochkin would have died anyway, so at least he "walked to the pharmacy" instead of dying boringly on the stretcher of the ambulance.

      Indeed, an hour after the therapist's examination and the purchase of Almagel and stomach tablets, Vyacheslav collapsed on the street and died of a massive heart attack, clutching a referral "for a stool test."

      Appealing to the judges' empathy, Alexey Alexandrovich provided Themis with a statement about a 15-million ruble debt for compulsory health insurance (documents are available to the editorial office), insisted on reducing the compensation amount — by half — and "shamed the sisters" for "poorly monitoring their brother's health — not buying a blood pressure monitor and not fighting against smoking."

      But as soon as the chief physician shifted to the topic of the "consumer attitude of the sisters towards their brother," who, having a garden, supplied numerous relatives with vegetables, lawyer Tatyana Bazhina, representing the interests of the victims, suggested to Alexey Alexandrovich to "establish a regressive relationship with the good doctor Nina Klepcha," who could pay off the compensation claims for the Central District Hospital from her decent salary and bonuses.