Who gets into the medical examination office in Vitebsk?

The examination office is located on the territory of the city emergency hospital; it is the only one in the regional center. Especially frequent guests here are police officers with their charges: citizens against whom an administrative or criminal case is being initiated. It is impossible to do without establishing the presence of alcohol or other intoxication in such cases, as the degree of punishment often depends on this. It is not surprising that during a 24-hour shift on weekends, up to 60-70 visitors sometimes pass through the duty medics, which include a psychiatrist-narcologist, a paramedic, and two specialists from the chemical-toxicological laboratory.

Doctor Alexander Lebedev and paramedic Irina Tsvirko, with whom I was on duty, have been working in the examination room for 13 and 7 years, respectively. They have seen a lot, of course. Rare shifts go by without drunk or drugged hooligans threatening and insulting everyone and everything, and conflicts with the accompanying police officers, often escalating into fights, are not uncommon. There are also curious situations. For example, one winter, in severe frost, medics had to work indoors in outerwear and mittens. A tipsy visitor broke free from the police, smashed a window pane, and tried to escape, but fortunately, he couldn't deal with the bars. Another time, a drug addict, who went to the toilet with a medical worker to give a urine sample for analysis, decided out of the blue... to commit suicide. He smashed a glass jar on the toilet bowl and tried to cut his carotid artery with a shard. Only thanks to the doctors' skill was the failed suicide victim saved.

It's eleven o'clock in the evening, and at the entrance are two 17-year-old lads accompanied by employees of the juvenile inspection. The police caught them in one of Vitebsk's drinking establishments. The presence of alcohol in their blood will largely determine their future: a fine, registration with the juvenile inspection, observation by a narcologist, and so on.

- Take a deep breath, exhale slowly into the tube until the signal, - explains the paramedic to the first of the young men. However, the young man clearly has no desire to find out the result quickly: he breathes through his nose, not his mouth, trying to cheat...

- We struggle like this with almost every intoxicated visitor. - explains the narcologist. - Often, to establish the truth, we have to take blood for alcohol content analysis. Today, this is the most accurate method. For this, we have a chemical and toxicological laboratory, which, if necessary, provides results within half an hour.

However, trying to deceive a medical breathalyzer is useless. The equipment is English, professional, certified, resembling a mini-computer. Chinese breathalyzers, which are now flooding the shelves of our stores, are not even close. The device undergoes regular calibration, and the measurement error is in the hundredths of a percent. And it's unlikely you can mislead a psychiatrist-narcologist. Based on a person's appearance and speech alone, a specialist can determine the fact of intoxication, and there are also various physical tests that are difficult or impossible for an intoxicated person to perform.

Meanwhile, on the third try, the young man managed to cope with the breathalyzer, and a minute later the device produced a result. And everything fell into place - 0.43 per mille of alcohol in exhaled air. 0.37 per mille was found in his friend (and intoxication is recorded at more than 0.3 per mille). While the doctor is writing the medical report, one of the minors, almost crying, insists:

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Meanwhile, new visitors appear in the corridor, a small queue forms, and you can hear them arguing among themselves and with the police.

- You're lucky today, - comments Alexander Lebedev. - So far, we're encountering relatively quiet clients. There have been cases where they simulated mental illnesses,

Meanwhile, a 22-23-year-old guy in handcuffs is brought into the narcologist's office. After introducing himself, he calmly breathes into the breathalyzer tube, which shows 0 per mille. As it was learned from the criminal investigation officer accompanying him, the young man is suspected of rape…

New visitors are a disheveled middle-aged couple. The 35-year-old

The breathalyzer registers 0.71 per mille of alcohol in him, and morphine was found in his urine analysis. Although, according to the man, he used heroin a few days ago. Such heavy drugs are not eliminated from the body even within a week, the doctor explained.

It turned out to be more difficult to examine his 36-year-old girlfriend. The breathalyzer did not detect alcohol in her exhaled air, but the woman refused to provide a urine sample for analysis.

- It's always difficult with such people, - notes Alexander Lebedev. - Drug addicts know that they face long prison sentences, but they cannot stop. They are cunning, deceitful, and throw tantrums. Once, a drug addict was brought to us who, to avoid getting caught, tied a bottle of "clean" urine to his belt and carried it in his pants. That's why our visitors go to the toilet accompanied by a medical worker.

Closer to midnight, patrol officers bring several more drunkards to the examination room. One, about 30 years old, stated that he was drinking cognac with friends and had not yet reached home. The second, a 24-year-old guy, in response to the police officers' remarks, wanted to test his strength against them. As expected, the first had 0.94 ppm of alcohol, and the second had almost 2, which, by the way, is approximately equal to a bottle of vodka.