The World Health Organization declared a global pandemic four months ago. But despite the lead-up time and experience of other countries, Kyrgyzstan has not proven ready for a rise in infection numbers. There are not enough beds in hospitals, there’s a clear lack of doctors and nurses, ambulances cannot cope with the colossal number of callouts, and there’s a backlog of people to be buried in cemeteries. What’s more, Kyrgyz citizens are having to deal with this on their own. While the government says it has the situation under control, the president is busy preparing for the upcoming parliamentary elections, and MPs have left for their “well deserved” holidays.
“I have the feeling I’m lying in a military hospital after a battle. I can hear a man’s heavy breathing from the ward on my left. Every minute, his moaning gets stronger and louder, he is suffering terribly,” this is how a patient in a Bishkek hospital describes the situation on the coronavirus ward.
“For the tenth time, the senior doctor calls somebody to ask for ventilators. But there aren’t any. The ICU refuses to accept any more patients, there’s no beds. Then, 20 minutes of silence, before a woman runs out into the corridor and shouts: ‘Help, this man has died!’ Everyone runs over, dropping things, calling the emergency staff. They massage his heart, ask for adrenalin. His pulse comes back, and they take him off, at last, to the ICU. Later we hear over the radio that they have five ventilators and seven patients, they’re trying to do something. Somebody’s shouting that they’re about to die.”
