“If this treatment doesn’t work, it’s recommended to visit a holy relic.”
That’s what a surgeon in annexed Crimea prescribed to one of his patients in serious condition.
Yuri Belonenko, a head and neck surgeon in Sevastopol, advised his patient to bow to the relics of St. Luke located in the Crimean provincial capital Simferopol if the medical treatments didn’t work. St. Luke of Crimea was a famous Russian-Soviet surgeon whose relics are believed to be able to perform miracles.
“Yes, it helps,” the doctor told the Rise news website after a photo of the prescription bearing his seal appeared online. “I don’t often make referrals like this — just in exceptional cases, when I’m unable to fully solve a patient's problem.”
Belonenko added that the trip isn’t the only recommendation in the prescription — he prescribed actual medicine to his patient, as well.
Local health authorities in Sevastopol are now investigating Belonenko’s unorthodox prescription, the state-run TASS news agency reported.
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