In Belarus, according to the State Employment Service, as of July 20, 2022, there is a shortage of nearly four thousand doctors and more than three thousand five hundred nurses. However, the repression among medical workers continues: on July 19, it became known that a gastroenterologist in Baranovichi (Brest region) Alexander Trofimov had been arrested. The reason is unknown, but it may be related to Trofimov’s civic stance.

In addition, Dmitry Morozov, an anesthesiologist at an oncology dispensary in Mogilev, was arrested the other day. In 2020, he left the official union and was going to form his own.
In addition, according to the Telegram channel of the medical initiative “White Coats”, several people who were detained in March in the “case of traumatologists” are still in custody. Furthermore, as DW was informed by the Medical Solidarity Fund, thirteen medical political prisoners were convicted or charged under criminal articles.

Surgeon Andrey Lyubetsky was sentenced to five years in prison and placed on the “terrorist list”. Anesthesiologist-resuscitator Tatyana Tolochko has been in custody for more than two months, she spent 25 days in appalling conditions in Akrestsina. DW spoke with relatives of political prisoners.

Helped a teenager beaten by security forces?

Tatiana Tolochka, an anesthesiologist and resuscitator at the Clinical Hospital of Children’s City No. 2 in Minsk, was detained on May 12, 2022. She is accused of violation of public order (Article 342 of the Penal Code) and forgery of documents (her relatives did not know inform the exact number of the article. – Red.).
According to them, security forces believe that in 2020 Tatiana helped teenager Timur Mitskevich to escape criminal prosecution.

On August 12, 2020, a minor Mitskevich ended up in intensive care after being beaten and tortured by security forces, doctors had to put the teenager in an induced coma. On September 3, Mitskevich was summoned for questioning at the Minsk Department of the Investigative Committee (CI). According to investigators, he participated in the August 10 riots on Pritytskogo Street and was involved in an armed attack on the driver of a MAZ truck. During one of the interrogations, Mitskevich became ill, he again ended up in intensive care. A few days later, Timur disappeared from the hospital. The teenager managed to flee the country. Now, 19-year-old Mitskevich is fighting alongside Ukraine in Kastus Kalinouski’s Belarusian regiment.

Husband was beaten on GUBOPiK for doctor to sign a confession

Tatyana Tolochko was Timur Mitskevich’s medical assistant. “GUBOPIK was unable to interrogate him at the hospital, after three days the security forces could not find anything to accuse him of, they removed the convoy and the guy fled, according to Tatyana’s colleagues, no longer from her department”, relatives of the doctor “We don’t know for sure, but we look at it this way: Tanya was a member of the commission that decided that Mickiewicz should not be interrogated, that is, his signature should theoretically be under this decision, as well as the signatures of other doctors, some drugs or other actions worsened his condition, and the medical commission decided that an interrogation was impossible.

As far as relatives know, of all the hospital staff, only Tolochko has been detained.
According to interlocutors, after the arrest, Tatyana spent 25 days in Akrestsina – first in the Delinquent Isolation Center, then in the Temporary Detention Center – without packages, letters, in overcrowded cells with homeless people.

GUBOPiK also detained Tolochko’s husband. DW interlocutors say that in the department the man was beaten so that Tatyana could hear him and sign the necessary confessions to the security forces.
Now the doctor is in preventive detention center No. 1 on Volodarsky Street. Here, Tolochko’s relatives observe, the conditions of detention are much better than in Akrestsina: there are four people in the cell, there is a small TV and a fan, prisoners are taken for a walk, letters are given to Tatyana, she can meet with a lawyer. When the doctor will start judging, relatives do not know.

Surgeon Lyubetsky has been added to the “Terrorist List”

Well-known maxillofacial surgeon Andrey Lyubetsky, who worked for 18 years at Children’s Hospital No. 4 in Minsk, was arrested on May 4, 2021. The doctor’s wife Natalya was forced to leave Belarus – in the “investigation” of the state television, she was accused of delivering false “secret documents” to former Almazovite Igor Makar.

At the end of March 2022, the investigation against Lyubetsky was completed, he was charged with four criminal articles – violation of public order (article 342 part 1), incitement to hatred and social discord (article 130 part 1), insulting a representative of the authorities (art. 369) and insulting the president (parts 1, 2 of article 368).

As reported by the Vesna human rights center, according to the investigation, the surgeon “He has repeatedly spoken publicly about the decision to violate the medical oath given to him… and in every possible way to prevent the provision of medical care to police officers and their family members, he has called on his colleagues to such illegal actions.” Lyubetsky was also accused of participating in eight protest actions, in addition, the doctor’s positions were qualified as insult and incitement to hostility.

On April 18, he was sentenced to five years in prison in a penal colony.
“On June 21, an appeal was considered in the Supreme Court – the verdict was upheld. In early June, we already knew that Andrei was going to IK-2 in Bobruisk to serve his sentence,” Lyubetsky’s sister Natalia told DW terrorists, “we found out on his birthday, July 7. A state of shock, misunderstanding, we still haven’t digested this information. Whether Andrei himself is aware of it, I don’t know.”

Natalia also says her brother never complains. “Andrey reads, continues to learn German, plays sports. He even plays with cards, I’m sure ‘everything will be fine,'” the woman notes.