Story By: Gheorghi Caraseni, Sub Editor:  Joseph Golder,  Agency: Newsflash

Newsflash/@plohie_novosti_18

This is the moment Russian nurses on IV drips suffering from viral infections are filmed packed into a room usually used for drying sheets.

The startling scenes were recorded at the city hospital of Derbent – the southernmost Russian city in the Republic of Dagestan.

In the video, nurses can be seen lying on triple bunk beds packed into a room usually used for drying laundry in the hospital.

The nurses are on IV drips, with some in face masks and others on their phones. Some of the women can be heard coughing in the packed room before a doctor can be seen sing a syringe on one of them as she calmly talks on the phone.

Local media report a total of eight nurses were in the room but were not infected with COVID-19 but with an unspecified viral respiratory infection (VRI).

After the video was shared on social media, the Mayor of the city, Khizri Abakarov, 59, reported that the nurses self-medicated after feeling ill and they previously worked in a unit for patients with viral diseases, but not coronavirus patients.

According to the reports, the head of the infectious diseases department of the hospital has been dismissed as a result of the video, while the hospital’s infectious disease specialist and the deputy chief physician for medical work have reportedly been reprimanded.

Local media reported that the nurses seen in the video have now been transferred to an old perinatal centre which was equipped with all the necessary equipment for them to be treated.

There have been no updates on their health condition.

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