Five years in prison requested for defendants in case of fatal barium poisoning of patients at St. Petersburg CDC

The defense claimed that the victims began to feel unwell immediately after the procedure, but as the former head of the radiation diagnostics department, Alexey Miklyaev, said at one of the hearings, only one patient complained of nausea. However, when he was asked to stay at the medical facility to monitor his condition, he allegedly ran away.

The Second Investigative Department of the First Directorate for the Investigation of Particularly Important Cases of the Main Investigative Directorate of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation for St. Petersburg completed the investigation of the case in July 2024. According to investigators, the criminal negligence of the heads of the medical institution led to the fact that barium sulfate, which was not intended for these purposes, was used for the examination. As a result, eight people died, and about fifty more were injured. During the investigation of the criminal case, more than 150 witnesses were questioned, over 60 different examinations were conducted, including forensic and chemical ones.

Initially, in January 2022, a criminal case was opened under Part 3 of Article 109 (causing death by negligence) and Part 3 of Article 238 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (provision of services that do not meet the requirements for the safety of life and health of consumers). At that time, it was reported that from 2021 to 2022, eight people died after a stomach examination at KDC No. 1, and another 44 patients suffered harm to their health. All of them drank a barium sulfate solution as a contrast agent. Later, the articles were reclassified; there is no publicly available information on why and when such a decision was made.

The drug in question was Barium sulfate 0.10 (H2O)%. KDC purchased it from the St. Petersburg company NevaReaktiv. After information about the deaths appeared, the company published the drug's passport, which stated its compliance with GOST.

The first defendant in the case was the head physician of the KDC, Yevgeny Popov. The Oktyabrsky District Court of St. Petersburg remanded him in custody in January 2022. In early February, Elena Medvedeva, Alexandra Feofanova, and Natalya Surovenko, who was also the deputy head physician, were placed in pretrial detention. Later, the defendants' preventive measure was changed to house arrest.

Another defendant in the case, the senior nurse of the KDC Marina Efremova, was under a written undertaking not to leave. In February 2022, it became known that she attempted suicide, after which she is still in a coma.

The case of Evgeny Popov and Natalya Surovenko was separated into a separate proceeding. They were sent as doctors to the SVO zone.