In Crimea, ambulance service workers continue to be fired en masse. Medics refuse to work in extreme conditions and receive a living wage. While the number of ambulances is rapidly decreasing, the occupation authorities manipulate the figures and deny the existence of the problem. To find out what is really happening, we talked to doctors and patients.

In February, the Ukrainian Center of National Resistance disseminated information about the massive dismissals of employees of the Center for Disaster Medicine who work at ambulance stations. “Due to the indifference of the Russian occupation administration, the medical sector is in decline, and a vivid example of this is the massive dismissals of ambulance workers in Simferopol. Doctors and paramedics are leaving their jobs due to unbearable working conditions, huge workload and humiliatingly low salaries,” the statement said.

In February, the Ukrainian Center of National Resistance disseminated information about the massive dismissals of employees of the Center for Disaster Medicine who work at ambulance stations. “Due to the indifference of the Russian occupation administration, the medical sector is in decline, and a vivid example of this is the massive dismissals of ambulance workers in Simferopol. Doctors and paramedics are leaving their jobs due to unbearable working conditions, huge workload and humiliatingly low salaries,” the statement said.

“They are a complete fake,” sighs Svetlana, a paramedic who has been working in a Simferopol ambulance for 20 years, commenting on the statement of the ”ministry.” “Maybe not so many doctors are really resigning, because they are a minority in the crews. We mostly employ paramedics, and they are the ones who leave most often. But for some reason, our management decided not to show these figures. They also lie about the overall staffing. There are substations where only two crews are working instead of the five that are supposed to be working according to the standard. This is their “80 percent,” explains Svitlana. She is also outraged by the fact that the official refutation does not mention a single word about the money she and her colleagues are paid. These figures are more difficult to manipulate, as you can see from the payroll: the salaries of ambulance workers do not exceed the Russian subsistence level.

Instead of raising the salaries of medical workers, the occupation authorities (represented by the director of the Crimean Republican Center for Disaster Medicine and Emergency Medical Care, Serhiy Olefirenko) once again promise them official housing, social allowances and improved working conditions.

“These are fairy tales for some completely naive suckers,” Vyacheslav, a paramedic from Bilohirsk, comments irritably on another round of promises from the leadership. “The ministry has no money for housing for doctors. They have all the money they want for overhauls, because it's easy to steal. But for housing, there hasn't been and won't be any. Where will it come from if such expenses are not even included in the budget? And there is no point in talking about “improving working conditions,”” the doctor says. According to him, not only paramedics, but also ambulance drivers are now leaving in droves. The labor market offers them more interesting jobs - without having to pay fines for speeding during emergency calls out of their own pockets and without having to wash the car from blood and vomit every day.

The staff shortage is making it increasingly difficult for those who remain to work, especially during the flu and SARS outbreak. According to Olefirenko, his subordinates handle more than two thousand calls every day. This means that, on average, each team makes 14 calls per shift. “The workload is about the same as that of a covid. And the pay is four times less. Anyone here would think it's time to look for another job,” says Svetlana, a paramedic.

Residents of the occupied peninsula also call the situation terrible. The stated standard of 20 minutes for an ambulance to arrive is almost never met, even in life-threatening situations. “When it became clear that my father had a stroke, we immediately called an ambulance. They told us that the ambulance was at another exit and then came straight to us. They had no other crew nearby. We waited for an hour and a half and lost time when we could still block a number of negative consequences. If we had known that this would happen, we would have driven ourselves in our car, despite the risks,” says Edie, a resident of Kirovsky district.

For less significant events, ambulances do not come at all. “My son fell down the stairs at school and got an open fracture of his arm. We called an ambulance. They waited for an hour. His bone was sticking out of his arm, bleeding, and it hurt. After an hour, it became clear that there was no point in waiting. I called a taxi and went with him to the hospital. It's good that he didn't break his neck, otherwise I wouldn't have been able to get there by taxi,” complains Mavile from Simferopol district.  

The medics do not hide the fact that each crew has to choose between several calls several times a day. Choosing between an old man with a stroke and a bleeding child is now also their job. Therefore, in addition to the ridiculous salary, they also receive condemnation and contempt from their fellow countrymen. That's why they quit, not ruling out the possibility that soon there will be no emergency medical care in Crimea, not just any medical care at all.