As the virus tears through Russia, medical workers are getting sick and dying at astonishing rates.

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Medics dressed in protective suits on Thursday before entering the “red zone” of a hospital in Moscow designated to treat patients with the coronavirus.Credit...Sergey Ponomarev for The New York Times

Russia is hailing its medical workers as heroes, their photographs plastered on billboards and their stories glamorized on state TV. But as the country becomes one of the global hot spots of the pandemic, those workers are suffering astonishing levels of infection and death in their ranks.

Thousands have been infected, and more than 180 doctors, nurses, paramedics and other medical workers have died.

Like their colleagues in much of the rest of the world, many of those doctors and nurses are suffering from a shortage of protective gear and equipment. But Russian health workers are also at the mercy of a convoluted, unforgiving bureaucracy that increasingly appears outmatched by the pandemic.

An internal federal government document obtained by The New York Times illuminated Russia’s lack of preparedness. In late March, regional Russian officials were sounding alarm bells about a drastic undersupply of protective equipment and pervasive confusion about how they were supposed to tackle the virus.

Those problems still have not been fully resolved. Now, six weeks later, even doctors at Moscow’s top hospitals are reporting nearly overwhelming levels of infection among their colleagues.

“I think that, as of today, I know a handful of people who have not been sick,” said Dr. Evgeny Zeltyn, a cardiologist at a Moscow hospital.

Dr. Zeltyn said he had been lucky: He was at work when he collapsed with a fever of 102 degrees. He received treatment right away, spent the night in his hospital as a patient and was back at work within five days.

“People are fighting,” he said. “People are incredibly tired.”