Russian doctors under probe for 'refusing to help dying woman' outside hospital

MOSCOW: Russian prosecutors launched a probe Wednesday after doctors reportedly refused to help a woman dying on the pavement outside the hospital where they worked in Yekaterinburg, a World Cup host city.

Prosecutors said they were checking media reports that the woman was left lying on the ground a few hundred metres from Hospital No. 23 in the Urals city and died while waiting for an ambulance called by members of the public.

“By the time the ambulance arrived, the woman no longer showed signs of life. Meanwhile the hospital reception was a few hundred metres from the patient,” prosecutors quoted media reports as saying of the incident, which happened on Tuesday evening.

Komsomolskaya Pravda tabloid posted a video taken on a cell phone by a witness named as Artyom Kruglov asking doctors in the hospital to help.

One doctor tells Kruglov he is preventing him from doing his job, while another says that “We’ll come soon, we also have seriously ill people.”

Prosecutors said they had confirmed the woman, who was suffering from cancer, had just visited the hospital for a procedure and collapsed as she waited for a taxi.

Prosecutors said they would check whether the woman was given adequate medical care. If doctors are found to have caused a patient’s death through refusing care, they could face four years in jail.

Investigators from the regional Investigative Committee said they were also checking the incident.

Yekaterinburg, a city around 1,400 kilometres (880 miles) east of Moscow, will be the easternmost city to host World Cup matches.