After years of war, Chechnya's health system is failing. Its citizens are falling victim to noncommunicable diseases antagonized by bad habits, such as smoking and poor diet, not to mention the stress of living in a war zone. As a result, two thirds of deaths in the country are caused by cardiovascular disease.
Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) works in Grozny's Republican Emergency Hospital, where today there is hope: in the hospital's cardiology unit, new equipment is helping to improve the health of Chechens.
Oxygen concentrators, defibrillators and electro cardiographs have reduced the unit's mortality rate by over 75 percent, according to staff there, who treated more than 1,500 patients in just one year.
