Opinions & Interviews

Lukashenko explains visits to hospitals with coronavirus patients

MINSK, 25 December (BelTA) – While talking to employees of the Minsk Children’s Infectious Diseases Hospital on 25 December, Belarus President Aleksandr Lukashenko explained why he had recently visited a number of medical institutions that treat coronavirus patients, BelTA has learned.

Aleksandr Lukashenko said: “It has been the style of my work for a quarter of the century. If harvesting or sowing is in progress, I go to visit peasants. If there are problems in the manufacturing sector, I go there. If something needs to be sold, I travel abroad. And so on. This disease in Belarus and the rest of the world is the greatest problem of our society at present (let’s call it a problem). Thank god, and I will not tire of repeating it, it has taken pity on us and still does.”

According to the data Aleksandr Lukashenko mentioned, the number of people being treated for pneumonia in Belarusian hospitals has dropped from about 22,000 to some 20,000. The number of people hooked up to lung ventilators remains roughly the same – about 500 people.

Apart from discussions about important matters of state the president’s visit to the children’s hospital was full of conversations with the little patients, who happened to be in the hospital on these festive days. Aleksandr Lukashenko presented a number of gifts to the kids. “It is very important when you enter an intensive care unit or a ward and see their eyes light up, when you see hope in their eyes… Even if I help improve the mood of one or two kids, it’s already a plus,” the president is convinced.

Aleksandr Lukashenko said that before the New Year he intends to visit another hospital – the national applied science center for pediatric oncology, hematology and immunology in Borovlyany. “Those are kids. They want a celebration on New Year’s Eve,” he noted.

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