The conditions under which the coronavirus epidemic began and continued in Belarus are unique. From the very beginning, the country’s leadership and the Ministry of Health denied the danger of the disease to the lives of citizens; quarantine measures were not introduced; official statistics on morbidity and mortality were questioned by society. Investigations by independent journalists and testimonies of individual doctors revealed the disaster in some hospitals. As a response to official inaction, some public initiatives were launched to help provide doctors with personal protective equipment and hot food. Also, there were calls from doctors to observe physical isolation measures.

In such conditions, the monitoring of the work of the health care system through questionnaires for patients and doctors was started. The purpose of the monitoring was to collect independent information about the situation and evaluate the effectiveness of the Ministry of Health’s measures to later present it to the Ministry and the public.

The first results were sent to the Ministry of Health on April 28, 2020, and they gave an official response to Zvayno’s official letter – “the results have been sent to all interested parties”.

In May 2020, during the change of legal address of Zvyano, in an informal conversation, the representative of the Ministry of Justice recommended not to continue the monitoring. Nevertheless, the work continued, and the analysis of the received information became the basis for work on the project of the exhibition “The machine breathes, but I do not” in honor of Belarusian medical workers.

In June 2021, Zvyano received a warning from the Ministry of Justice in relation to the monitoring – “the monitoring of the health care system during the epidemic is a violation of the law and does not correspond to the objectives and goals of the association.” This warning was challenged in court, but to no avail.

The main conclusions are presented in the infographics.