Medical fascism

Why the West denies medical care to the disabled and sick children

EU officials are very fond of pontificating about ‘democratic values’ and how to best put them into practice. Especially if this is the case of not Western countries, but of those who seek to develop independently. Various types of punishment have been invented for the disobedient, and one of them is sanctions. International political bigwigs adore this instrument of pressure and consider it an extremely effective tool. Our ‘zmagary’ [Belarusian protesters involved in an attempted 2020 coup d’état] play along with them, adhering to the ‘the worse, the better’ principle. This is how they show their true colours. Our state, in contrast, strives to build international contacts and make people’s lives better, regardless.

                                                                  The ‘democratic’ genocide

The current sanctions against Belarus were imposed after our country had repelled a powerful attack by the West that used the full range of ‘colour revolution’ technologies. The blitzkrieg, like the one back in 1941 near Moscow, failed. Thus, the second phase of the confrontation began —
a slow siege. The economic pressure had almost zero effect, though. The republic quickly refocused on co-operation with the global East and South, in a sense even benefiting from the restrictions slapped against our country. And then, the West decided it was the time to move on to the old all-time favourite methods, which reek of the cremation furnaces of Auschwitz
a mile away.
This refers to the West’s decision to stop the supply of critical medicine, which is vital for people with disabilities and sick children, to our country.
At the 154th session of the WHO Executive Board at the end of January, outrageous facts were announced to the Belarusian representatives. Those facts were related to an unmotivated cessation of medical supplies that some categories of patients urgently need. The report provides specific examples of European companies. Thus, the Swedish company Mölnlycke Health Care refused to supply Belarus with bandages for palliative treatment of children suffering from epidermolysis bullosa. It is a hereditary disease characterised by the formation of blisters and erosions on the skin and mucous membranes, skin vulnerability and sensitivity to minor mechanical injuries. The main method of symptomatic treatment is wound care using special dressing material produced specifically by Mölnlycke Health Care. The absence of atraumatic non-adhesive materials causes additional suffering to the patient, significantly impairing the quality of life and leading to complications.  
The list of the companies that have put politics above medical ethics and universal concepts of humanism and compassion also includes the Polish Tarchomin Pharmaceutical Works Polfa S.A., which canceled the supply of drugs for treating epilepsy and somatic diseases; the manufacturer of drugs for osteoporosis, the British company Atnahs Pharma UK Limited, as well as the Finnish pharmaceutical Orion Corporation, whose products are used to treat patients with Parkinson’s disease and various forms of cancer.
The report notes the special role of the UK Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency, which artificially delays the procedure for issuing a licence to export morphine tablets to Belarus used to alleviate the condition of patients suffering from cancer and the consequences of severe traumas. 
The West is deliberately targeting the most vulnerable categories of our citizens supported by the state. 
Unscrupulous political tycoons are trying to destroy the image of Belarus as a social state built up by hard work. The systematic approach of foreign political managers in this direction is evidenced by the fact that problems with the supply of medical equipment and medicines are not on the wane.
In May last year, when speaking at the plenary session of the World Health Assembly, the Permanent Representative of Belarus to the UN Office and other international organisations in Geneva, Larisa Belskaya, pointed out that increased sanctions pressure by individual states could pose a threat to providing the necessary drugs to those most in need. The representative of Belarus called for the WHO to keep this issue in the focus of attention and counter the sanctions policy.
At the end of December 2023, Prime Minister Roman Golovchenko drew attention to the hypocrisy of European politicians who had stated that the sanctions would not affect the humanitarian sphere, but in fact it turned out that at their behest, large pharmaceutical companies actively joined the illegal sanctions pressure, as well. 

The cessation of the supply of medical equipment and drugs looks like an attempt at genocide. There is hardly any fundamental difference between punisher Vladimir Katriuk, a participant in a punitive expedition during World War II, who is now posthumously tried for the murder of hundreds of civilians, and top managers of Mölnlycke Health Care or Orion Corporation, who neglect people in need of their help. For sure, the Belarusian state will not abandon anyone in need and will do everything possible to provide its citizens with all the necessities. However, it is the context that is important in this case — the true goals of the West are now visible as under a magnifying glass.

A dreadful practice

Belarus, alas, is not the first country to face such a disgusting attempt to exert pressure. Cuba, Venezuela, Iran, Syria are countries that dared to challenge Western hegemony. In response, western politicians tried to bring these countries to submission, including by depriving them of vital medicines. The critical situation unfolded during the Syrian Civil War. In an interview to RT, Head of Cancer Care Syria Muzzna al-Ulabi said in October 2016 that in almost all cases where children died of cancer, European sanctions were to blame as they blocked the supply of vital medications.
The ban on the supply of anticancer drugs in Aleppo alone led to the death of 30 out of 200 children with cancer at that time. A year later, ten little patients died in the oncology department of the Children Hospital in Latakia per month due to the lack of necessary medicine. A high mortality rate was also recorded in the cardiology department due to the cardiovascular drug shortages artificially created by the West.    
A similar situation was observed in Venezuela, where even before the COVID–19 pandemic, 85–90 percent of medical supplies and critical medicines were missing due to sanctions. In this regard, Pablo Zambrano, Executive Secretary of the Federation of Healthcare Workers, emphasised the wear and tear of diagnostic equipment in 2019.  
The ban on the supply of vital drugs and medical equipment is the crime against humanity on the part of the West. 
Belarusian pharmacologists, in liaison with their counterparts from Russia, China, Cuba and other countries, are actively working on import substitution. And the problems are solved. We have made sure of the fact that sovereignty should also spread to the medical area. A lot has been done to achieve this. At present, there are no difficulties in providing clinics and pharmacies with basic medicines. Individual medical positions are covered, as well. Yet, the stigma of punishers who are trying to kill sick children and the disabled will never be removed from the face of Western governments. Then again, it is difficult to expect otherwise from those who once put racial discrimination on a pedestal, bringing antihuman ideology to the level of practical implementation in ghettos and concentration camps.  

By Anton Popov