SOVIET HISTORY LESSONS

Liberation newspaper, January 13, 1977. 

 

Vladimir Prison is the most severe place of detention in the Soviet Union. The most "formidable" criminal prisoners and the most "dangerous" political prisoners are imprisoned there. The detention regime is set accordingly. Dilapidated buildings, unsanitary punishment cells endanger the health of inmates. Added to this is the cynicism of the prison administration which, together with the very special medical service of the prison, plays games with the lives of prisoners. "You are in prison, so I do not intend to treat you in all seriousness, as long as you remain our enemies," a doctor once told Vladimir Bukovsky. An inmate must therefore engage in a daily battle to obtain the right to be treated. The third part of Vladimir Bukovsky's Prison Notes we publish today is a damning testimony to the medical practices of the Vladimir Prison.

 

LIST OF THE HEADS OF MEDICAL AFFAIRS

 

V. N. Popov, Deputy Head of Health Services, Ministry of Interior, USSR (MVD).

 

A. A. Bobylev, Deputy Head of the Medical Section of the MVD.

 

S. S. Kazakov, Head of Health Services of the Directorate of Corrective Work Establishments at the Directorate of MVD at the Regional Executive Committee of Vladimir region.

 

Major Zalivina, Inspector of Corrective Work Establishments in the direction of the MVD.

 

Major E. Boutova, Head of the Sanitary Division of Vladimir Prison.

 

Doctors of the buildings. 

 

1st building -- E. Pigareva. 

3rd building -- Titova.

4th building -- Z. Zamovskaya.

 

Ordinance No. 125 of the Minister of the Interior on the functioning of health services (May 1975) specifies that all punitive measures are to be fully applied to hospitalized prisoners (therefore, what is decisive is the penitentiary regime and not the the physical condition of an inmate; there must be a risk of imminent death for the the health service to exempt a patient from the punishment to which he is liable). Hence the usual practice of confining tuberculosis patients regardless of the stage of their disease. After a tuberculosis patient stays in a punishment cell, it undergoes no disinfection.

 

 

THE CASE OF POLITICAL PRISONER KRASSNIAK

 

Vladimir Krassniak, after being transferred to the Vladimir prison from camp No. 36 in Perm, was examined by psychiatrists and found to be mentally ill. In prison he was placed as such in a hospital cell, and treated accordingly. Despite this, from time to time he was being put in punishment cells "for breach of the detention regime." In particular from July 1 to July 10, 1975 he was put in a punishment cell together with Mechener. When Meshener complained, the administration reacted by transferring Krassniak to another punishment cell. According to Meshener, Krassniak was put on the same diet as the ordinary punished and received food according to the 9b standard, that is once every two days. 

 

Response from Kazakov, Chief of Health Services of the Ministry of Interior for the Vladimir region, dated July 25, 1975 to one of my complaints was as follows: "Inmate Krassniak V. has not been put the punishment cell but placed in a medical isolator because of the seriousness of his condition in regard to maintenance of his food ration and treatment." This response was contested by writing to various offices of the Interior Ministry, the Central Committee and the Prosecutor's Office, but all these complaints were referred to the same Kazakov. During a conversation with me (November 1975) Major Zalivina, inspector of Vladimir's Directorate of Corrective Work Establishments, assured me that Krassniak himself had asked to be put in a punishment cell and refused the diet which was offered to him.

 

 

THE CASE OF CRIMINAL CONVICT ZENOV

 

Zenov Nikolai Alexandrovitch, born in 1951, sentenced to 15 years of detention under special regime (including eight years in prison) for a serious crime. In December 1975 he spent two weeks in a punishment cell (cell no. 22) and became ill with a cold. He went to the doctor of building number 1, E. Pigareva, but received no treatment. On March 12, 1976, he was again put in a punishment cell with 39.5 degrees of fever. When he left the punishment cell he was unable to call a doctor or the doctor's assistant. The doctor of the building received him only when his temperature reached 41 degrees, his lips turned black, etc. An X-ray examination revealed long-standing pleurisy in the right lung.

 

Three liters of pus were pumped from the lung. He was then hospitalized for two months (from March 29 to May 30). On May 29, he had a heart seizure. He tried to get the doctor to come, but three hours passed before someone arrived. As a result of his knocking on his door, surgeon Pigarev finally arrived and threw himself at him with his fists, shouting, without wanting to hear him out: "Couldn't you have waited for one minute?!" When Zenov asked him if he was a jailor or a doctor he replied, "a jailor." After which Zenov was sent back to his building.

 

At the beginning of June he asked to be seen by the doctor of building number 4, E. Zamovskaya, because he had pus and blood in his lungs. She said he needed to be hospitalized urgently, but the "operational manager" and Major Boutova, Head of the Sanitary Division of Vladimir Prison, then in turn refused to sign the transfer order. Following a complaint to the Attorney General, a captain from the local section of the Corrective Work Establishments Directorate came over and promised to help Zenov to be placed in  hospital.

 

However, after a fortnight nothing had changed and Zenov lodged a new complaint with the prosecutor. After which Inspector Zalivina also promised to help. In the meantime, the patient's condition worsened, the fever rose to 40 degrees. On July 21, an X-ray examination revealed three abscesses in the lungs, but he still was not hospitalized. 

 

The criminal convicts succeeded in making political prisoners aware of this affair. The complaints made about this by political prisoners were all confiscated, as being "written for another person." Only the complaint to the regional prosecutor reached its destination, because complaints which are addressed to the prosecutor's office are not being screened by the prison administration. The prosecutor's office forwarded it to the Directorate of Corrective Work Establishments, where the following response was received: "I am asking you to inform inmate Bukovsky that his complaint which was sent to us by the prosecutor's office had been examined. In his complaint Bukovsky touches upon issues which do not concern him personally."

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TYPICAL RESPONSES TO COMPLAINTS RELATING TO MEDICAL ASSISTANCE

 

Response from Kazakov, dated January 8, 1976:

 

"Please inform inmate Bukovsky that his complaint, which was referred to us by the executive committee of the city of Vladimir, was examined by the health services of the Management of the Corrective Work Establishments and declared inadmissible. The health unit of the OD-1/st 2 establishment is in possession of treatment and diagnostic equipment as well as medicines; the inmates are fed according to the regulations in force; there are no violations of the detention regime...".

 

Complaints sent to figures like Timakov, the President of the Academy of Medicine of the USSR, end up being forwarded to the people who are the subject of these complaints. Below is the answer from Galina Mokhova, representative of the 113th constituency of the City Soviet of Vladimir (in whose territory the prison is located), who is Chief Medical Officer of the municipal hospital, to one of my complaints about Gunnar Rohde and the general state of medical assistance in the Vladimir prison:

 

"On November 11, I checked the facts relayed in your complaints dated October 20 and October 27. After having analyzed the medical treatment records of Bukovsky, Rohde and some other patients, having examined the registers of rounds performed by medical assistants, the lists of prescriptions, as well as the state of the equipment for treatment and diagnosis, the supply of medicines, the staff, the organization of medical assistance in emergency cases, I have come to a conclusion that medical assistance in prison number two is in line with modern level of development of science of medical practice."

 

Bukovsky's comment: Representative Mokhova appeared exceptionally willing to help and to understand. Very soon after receiving the complaint she came to visit to the prison, and, as her answer shows, did inspect the medical unit and medical documentation. But her answer is a prime example of a case where even sympathetic people can easily be misled by lack of knowledge of prison conditions. Thus, Mokhova rightly writes that the spasmodic pains from which Rohde suffered did not call for urgent hospitalization and that therapy applied to him was effective. But in order to get therapy, or even to simply bring in a medical assistant (spasmodic pains in Rhode, who had suffered from an intestinal obstruction, are extremely agonizing, despite being "banal") Rohde's cellmates had to uproot a bench fixed to the cement floor, smash the feeding box, and split open the door. It goes without saying that such circumstances do not appear in the registers of doctor's visits and prescriptions, any more than there are records of cases where medical assistance was not provided.

 

Under the conditions of prison medicine and taking into account the restrictions set out in Ordinance No. 125, prison doctors cannot even take up the task of curing the sick. The role of prison medicine is limited to reducing the severity of the disease and preventing a fatal outcome. As a result, the diseases pass into a chronic form which is difficult to cure and subsequently lead to disability. Doctor of building number four Zamovskaya said bluntly: "You are in prison, I have no intention of treating you in all seriousness, as you are our enemies. I'm not going to waste my time treating traitors". She was also the one who told me: "I did not ask you to come to prison, you are being punished, you shouldn't have arrived in prison" (in response to a request to assign treatment of liver disease).

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VLADIMIR PRISON HOSPITAL

 

Two floors of building no. 2 are reserved for the hospital. It is the oldest building in this prison. The transfer to the hospital is considered not a medical measure, but as a reward, as hospital food rations are provided there. The decision to transfer does not depend so much on the doctors as on the "operational" division. The hospital has 40 cells, including the psychiatric ones. A cell cannot contain more than three people out of a total of 1,300 inmates in this prison, of whom at least one third suffers from ulcers and at least 25% from tuberculosis. The 7.5 square meter hospital cell has no toilet or sink, detainees are taken to the latrine twice a day. There is only one warden per corridor and it is not possible to ask to go to the toilet outside the fixed hours, regardless of the nature of the prisoner's illness.

 

Hospital cells, like all others, have metal shields on the windows and the floors are cement. The sick, like all prisoners, live by a weak electric light, never extinguished. In the hospital, the walk -- for those who are able to walk -- is two hours, not one, as for the rest of the prisoners. 

 

On the top floor of the building there is the polyclinic section with the doctors' offices, which makes it relatively easier to get a doctor's visit than it is for those who are in the regular cells, although here it is also not easy. Medicines and injections are distributed in the corridors due to lack of sufficient space in the cells: the patient is summoned to the corridor and undergoes, standing, intramuscular or intravenous injections. (In ordinary cells, injections, when prescribed, are made by the doctor through the feeding box). Treatment, diet, and all medical measures, including transfer to the hospital, are used as a means of pressure on prisoners, because they are put in direct relation to their "conduct."

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CALLING FOR A DOCTOR WHILE IN A REGULAR CELL

 

One can sign up for a visit in the morning, and only in the morning. This does not mean that you will be called the same day, being called can take a very long time, a week or two. In an emergency, you can summon the doctor's assistant, but even for that, you have to knock on your door and keep demanding it for a long time. It is particularly difficult to get medical help if you are in the punishment cell. And even if the doctor's assistant is brought in, he does not enter the cell and "performs his duties" through the feeding box. If the patient is unconscious, he has to be carried to the feeding box. Sometimes, the doctor's assistant is delayed so such a long time that the inmates start to demolish the feeding box and the door.

 

In September 1976, Souslensky, while located in punishment cell number 11 in building number 4, lost consciousness following a heart seizure. The inmates of the neighboring punishment cells succeeded in informing the inmates in the regular cells about this. For several hours inmates from across the building, including criminal convicts, kept knocking and bashing on doors and yelling out of the windows for a doctor. Reinforcements of wardens, armed with batons, were summoned as a result. Subsequently, Souslensky was transported on a stretcher from the punishment cell of building number four to a punishment cell of building number one where he stayed for the four remaining days of his punishment period.

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