WALLS HAVE EARS
Paranoid Putin bugs GP surgeries ‘to root out draft-dodgers trying to avoid meatgrinder war with bogus illnesses’
It is currently unclear whether regions other than Moscow are also bugging patients and doctors
PARANOID Vladimir Putin has "wiretapped" GP surgeries in Moscow to try to catch out draft-dodgers, according to unions.
No patient has been asked for their consent and doctors aren't allowed to opt out of the spyware bugging system fitted into their computers, it's been reported.
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“I absolutely do not want my conversations with doctors to be transmitted somewhere, nor recorded,” insisted one Muscovite.
“This is a medical secret. I should have the right to this.”
An IT specialist said: “It makes my hair stand on end. No arguments like ‘anonymised data’ will convince me. This is murky.”
Russian health officials have been claiming that the draconian step is to improve the way doctors interact with patients.
The aim is to check medics are using the right language with patients, not patronising, offending or mocking them.
Patients are told on signs: “The conversation is recorded in order to improve service quality.”
Officials have claimed that the recordings will be made anonymous so the identity of patients and doctors cannot be tracked.
Although few people actually believe that it will be anonymous given Russia's past, as a country famed for relentless snooping on its citizens in the Soviet era.
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Moscow already has more facial recognition cameras than any city in Europe as Putin brings bugging into a new era.
Deystiviye health union leader Maria Gubareva echoed complaints that doctors were “indignant” over the intrusion into their consulting rooms.
She said that the big brother intrusion was unveiled in a decree without consultation just days ago.
And that it now appears that by making an appointment patients are implicitly “agreeing that all intimate details, which they cannot always tell out loud even to a doctor, will be available to third parties”.
“Total control makes you want to instantly become a robotic cat.”
Medics will use “a set of routine phrases, nothing personal,” she predicted, giving poorer service to patients.
“God forbid you distract the patient during an unpleasant procedure with extraneous conversation.
“Big brother is watching us…
“The concept of medical confidentiality, a sacrament existing between a doctor and a patient, is vanishing.”
Medics have been ordered not to cover their computers in an attempt to mute the sound.
One patient complained: “Considering that everything these days is hacked, then scammers or the Internet will listen.
“There is no longer a right to privacy and secrets at all.”
Others say it as further evidence of the total control of the state under Putin.
“It's horrible,” said one, who claimed this could be an unintended tipping point.
“Perhaps, it will show we have had enough with total surveillance?”
One fear is it could be used to root out doctors who give bogus medical exemptions to those called up to the Russian army.
The news comes after a brutal month of losses for Putin.
It has been claimed that he was losing thousands of soldiers in "suicidal meat assaults" in late December.
Putin is understood to have lost just under 400,000 troops since the beginning of his war against Ukraine, and a three-day bombardment last month saw him lose over 3,200 troops in that period alone.
His frontline has also been falling victim to "rat-bite" fever, according to Ukraine's Main Intelligence Directorate.
Although it has been claimed that Russian commanders have ignored complaints about the outbreak of the disease - because they view fevers as an excuse to avoid combat.
Putin's forces have also lost tens of thousands of tanks, armoured vehicles, rocket systems, aircraft, ships, submarines and drones alongside these troops.
According to Admiral Sir Tony Radakin, this is Putin's second greatest mistake.
He said: “If his first catastrophic mistake was invading Ukraine, he is now making his second calamitous blunder.
“The Russian economy is being twisted even more out of shape.
“Nearly 40 per cent of all Russian public expenditure is being spent on defence.
“That is more than the aggregate of health and education.
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“And the last time we saw these levels was at the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union.”
He added: “This is disastrous for Russia and its people.”
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