The Feofaniya State Clinical Hospital, the State Scientific and Practical Centre for Preventive and Clinical Medicine, and the State Institution "Polyclinic No. 2" are proposed to be switched from the authority of the State Management of Affairs under the Ministry for Veterans Affairs of Ukraine.
A corresponding petition was registered by Vitalii Hersak, a volunteer soldier, Lieutenant Colonel of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and Head of the NGO "Free and Faithful" (Vilni ta Virni) at on the official website of the President of Ukraine.
According to the author of the petition, Ukraine inherited from the USSR a powerful infrastructure of "privileged" medicine and recreation, which is now subordinated to the State Management of Affairs. In particular, we refer to the Feofaniya State Clinical Hospital of the State Management of Affairs, the State Scientific Institution "Scientific and Practical Centre for Preventive and Clinical Medicine of the State Management of Affairs" (SSI "SPC PCM" of the SMA), formerly Polyclinic No. 1, the State Institution "Polyclinic No. 2" of the State Management of Affairs, and other facilities.
The said medical institutions provide treatment to the President of Ukraine, the Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, the Prime Minister of Ukraine, members of the Cabinet of Ministers, heads of the Presidential Office, members of the National Security and Defence Council, the Constitutional Court, the Supreme Court, the Central Election Commission, employees of the Prosecutor General's Office and other central authorities, as well as People's Deputies and officials in charge of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, academicians and corresponding members of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, the National Academy of Medical Sciences of Ukraine, the National Academy of Agrarian Sciences of Ukraine, the National Academy of Educational Sciences of Ukraine, and other national academies of Ukraine. All People's Artists of Ukraine, People's Artists of Visual Arts of Ukraine and persons who were conferred the highest honorary titles of Ukraine are registered at the polyclinics.
However, annual percentage of these people in the total number of inpatients is about 3% of the total number of patients in these medical institutions. It is therefore quite obvious that most of those who have state healthcare privileges are either treated at their place of residence, or have long been using private healthcare services, or are treated privately abroad.
According to V. Hersak, there is a certain paradox: the State Management of Affairs has modern medical institutions of the highest class under its control, while the Ministry for Veterans Affairs (the number of veterans is constantly increasing and, according to experts, will soon reach about 5 million people) only cooperates with the National Health Service of Ukraine.
"For comparison, in the United States, the Department of Veterans Affairs has the most developed and high-quality national network of medical institutions, which consists of 171 medical centres and more than 1,400 outpatient clinics, employing about 53,000 medical specialists who provide surgical, inpatient, diagnostic, consulting, rehabilitation and preventive services to millions of defenders of the Fatherland, while our Ministry for Veterans Affairs still remains only an "office" without its own infrastructure and effective tools for performing its functions," V. Hersak notes.
In the petition, the author appeals to the President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy with the request to put these "governmental" medical institutions under the authority of the Ministry for Veterans Affairs of Ukraine; to instruct the Cabinet of Ministers to establish a national network of medical and rehabilitation centres operating under the Ministry for Veterans Affairs of Ukraine on their basis; to grant the Medical Expert Board of the Feofaniya State Clinical Hospital the status of the Central Military and Medical Evaluation Board of the Ministry for Veterans Affairs of Ukraine; to put all existing resort and recreation facilities that are under the control of the State Management of Affairs and confiscated sanctioned medical and recreational assets that are at the disposal of the State Property Fund under the authority of the Ministry for Veterans Affairs of Ukraine.