Relatives of patients of a drug treatment clinic in Kemerovo were intimidated and blackmailed

Relatives of patients of the Svoboda drug treatment clinic in Kemerovo, where a man had died earlier, were intimidated and blackmailed. This was reported to Izvestia on March 25 by a source.

According to him, the most important thing for the clinic's managers was to "drive patients" to the hospital under the pretext of poor health. Then they called the relatives of the patients and talked about the need for urgent treatment, which required a lot of money.

"They intimidated relatives, saying that [the patient's] situation was very difficult, that everything was sad with his heart. Often, to enhance the effect, they took an ECG machine with them, while pretending that they could read the film and spoke with memorized phrases. And then they just promoted it for money," the source said.

He also confirmed that during the procedures, patients were given psychotropic drugs that they had no right to prescribe.

"There were powerful pills there too, which are prescribed for mentally ill people with schizophrenia. The drug was prescribed to any patient, no one double—checked the prescriptions," the source explained.

According to him, medications were prescribed without preliminary tests. The clinic did not have the equipment necessary for diagnosis and treatment, and there was no intensive care unit.

The Investigative Committee of Russia announced the detention of the former chief physician and director of the Kemerovo clinic on March 24. The department's Telegram channel noted that the institution provided paid services that did not meet the safety of consumers' lives. In particular, in August 2025, a 37-year-old man died while providing medical care after the introduction of psychotropic substances.

In December of the same year, another patient of the private clinic was urgently hospitalized with acute poisoning. After reports of the detention of the clinic's staff, rapper Guf (real name — Alexey Dolmatov), who was its ambassador, announced on his social networks that he was ceasing cooperation with the institution.

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The work of rehabilitation centers for people with addictions requires uniform standards

In February, Ruslan Isaev, president of the Independent Narcological Guild, a psychiatrist and narcologist, proposed certifying rehabilitation centers for drug addicts in Russia. He voiced the idea during a round table of the State Duma Committee on Health Protection, held in the lower house of parliament. The reason for the intensification of the discussion was the high-profile events of the end of 2025, when serious violations in the activities of rehabilitation centers were revealed in a number of regions of Russia, and the owners and employees of individual institutions became involved in criminal cases.

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