Russia’s suicide trend among cancer patients continues

Two cancer patients in Moscow have committed suicide, say local police.

One of the patients, an 83-year-old man living on Oktyabrskaya street, jumped to his death from a six-story apartment building. His widow says he’d suffered constant pain due to cancer and had repeatedly complained that he was tired of the disease.

The other cancer patient, an 80-year-old man living on the city’s east side, hanged himself, leaving a suicide note saying he could no longer endure the pain of his illness.

According to Moscow police, at least nine cancer patients have killed themselves since the beginning of the month. 

Since the beginning of February, these are already the eighth and ninth suicides by cancer patients. Previous cases this month have been recorded in the city’s north, northeast, south, and southwest districts.

In 2014, Russia’s problems with providing painkillers to terminally ill cancer patients attracted public outrage, after several cancer patients committed suicide to end their own suffering. The suicides included Rear Admiral Vyacheslav Apanasenko, who killed himself, his family says, when his wife was unable to obtain a doctor’s prescription for painkillers.

Also widely discussed recently is the case of Krasnodar doctor Alevtina Khorinyak, who three years ago prescribed two painkiller medications to terminally ill cancer patient Viktor Sechin, whose local pharmacy had run out of its state-subsidized supply of tramadol (the painkiller Sechin needed). Khorinyak’s prescription allowed Sechin to receive the drugs free at another clinic, which Drug Control officials say was illegal. In May 2013, a Krasnodar district court convicted Dr. Khorinyak and a friend of Sechin’s family of drug trafficking and forgery, fining them each 15,000 rubles (about $475, at the time). In October 2014, an appeals court reversed the verdict.

In January 2015, Russia’s Health Ministry announced plans to simply regulations on painkiller prescriptions, though it remains unclear when the reforms might take effect.