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Alexey Navalny: Alexander Murakhovsky, former chief doctor at hospital that treated Kremlin critic, is found alive
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Alexey Navalny: Alexander Murakhovsky, former chief doctor at hospital that treated Kremlin critic, is found alive

By Jason Diego / May 10, 2021
Alexander Murakhovsky is the current regional Health Minister of the Omsk region — promoted in November last year to the position — after his handling of Navalny’s hospitalization at Omsk emergency hospital No. 1.

Local police in Omsk had told TASS that Murakhovsky was reported missing on Saturday after leaving a hunting base in a forest on an all-terrain vehicle on Friday.

“The Minister of Health of the Omsk Region, Alexander Murakhovsky, came out to people in the area of the Basly village,” the press service of the regional government said Monday, TASS reported. “He is in a good condition. Now he is being examined at a hospital in the Bolsheukovsky District.”

Murakhovsky did not require medical treatment and will return to work on Tuesday, according to Russian state media, RIA Novosti.

A source from the local emergency services said Murakhovsky was found in the forest, 32 kilometers (20 miles) from the village of Pospelovo, where he disappeared, TASS added.

The rescue effort in the wetlands involved emergency services, police, the national guard, hunting inspectors and volunteers.

Murakhovsky was the chief doctor at Omsk emergency hospital No. 1 when Navalny was admitted to the acute poisoning unit of the hospital on August 20, after falling ill on a plane heading from Siberia to Moscow. The plane made an emergency landing in Omsk.

Murakhovsky gave multiple press briefings at the time of Navalny’s hospitalization and told media the “main working diagnosis” for the Kremlin critic was “a metabolic disorder which caused a sharp drop in blood sugar.”

When Murakhovsky was promoted to regional health minister of Omsk in November 2020, Navalny ridiculed the move on social media saying at the time: “You lie, fake test results, are ready to please the bosses in any way — you get an award and a promotion.”

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In February 2021, Sergey Maximishin, who was the deputy chief physician of the Siberian hospital where Navalny was treated, “suddenly” died at the age of 55. As the hospital’s deputy chief physician for anesthesiology and resuscitation, he was one of the most senior doctors at the hospital.

Leonid Volkov, Navalny’s chief of staff, confirmed at the time that Maximishin was in charge of treating the opposition leader during his hospital visit in Omsk — specifically his medically induced coma.

Navalny was put into a medically induced coma and eventually evacuated to the German capital of Berlin, where he spent five months recovering from poisoning after exposure to military-grade Novichok nerve agent.

Rustam Agishev, another top doctor who worked at Omsk emergency hospital No. 1, also died in March of this year. According to a statement released by the hospital at the time, 63-year-old Agishev suffered a stroke in December last year and did not recover from it. It is not clear if Agishev had anything to do with Navalny’s treatment.

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