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Dr. Alexander Shulepov is in serious condition after falling from a building. Two other doctors treating coronavirus patients have died in similar circumstances.
Alexander Shulepov, a doctor at an ambulance unit in Russia’s western Voronezh region, complained in an April 22 post on social media about shortages of medical supplies and being forced to work despite testing positive for COVID-19.
Ten days later, he fell from a hospital window under mysterious circumstances, local media reported, making him the third Russian doctor treating coronavirus patients to suffer a similar fate in just the past 10 days.
Shulepov, 37, survived the fall from a second-floor window, but he suffered a fractured skull and is now in serious condition. The two other doctors are reported to have died.
The falls are being viewed suspiciously by many in Russia, which has a history of targeting and eliminating critics, including several who have mysteriously fallen to their deaths in recent years.
Shulepov’s colleague, ambulance paramedic Alexander Kosyakin, and representatives of the regional coronavirus task force, confirmed over the weekend that Shulepov fell out of a window, according to news outlets Meduza and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. The incident happened at the Novousmansky district hospital where Shulepov worked and was being treated for COVID-19 in the town of Novaya Usman.
Shulepov had reportedly been hospitalized on April 22 after testing positive for COVID-19 but was set to be released soon after his latest test came back negative.
On the day he was admitted, Shulepov and Kosyakin published a video in which they complained about their boss forcing Shulepov and his colleagues to continue working together even after his positive test result.
“The chief doctor is forcing us to work. What do we do in this situation?” Shulepov said in the video.
But Shulepov retracted his statement three days later, amid suspicions that he was threatened to do so, saying in another video that he was in “an emotional state” when he made his initial claim.
Shulepov is the third physician in Russia to fall out of a window under mysterious circumstances during the coronavirus outbreak.