The New Pharma Mafia Enters the Ministry of Health

The New Pharma Mafia Enters the Ministry of Health

Actually, we are in trouble. And most citizens simply do not realize it.

While we are here discussing the press conference of one important person, the Cabinet of Ministers yesterday dismissed the First Deputy Minister of Health of the Ministry of Health, Olena Teryaeva. She was appointed to the position on 8 April.

Before that, Olena Teryaeva worked at the Odesa Regional State Administration as head of the health department.

Then she was director of the Southern Interregional Department of the National Health Service of Ukraine (NHSU). And before that she headed the municipal institution "Odesa Regional Center for Emergency Medical Care and Disaster Medicine."

Olena Teryaeva is originally from Donetsk region. How she ended up in the circle of then-ODA head Stepanov, I do not know. But the reviews about Teryaeva are decent. “Compared to Shatalova, Teryaeva does no harm,” a specialist who knows both the medical situation and medical personnel well told me.

Shatalova is that loyal and perpetual deputy of Stepanov wherever he is appointed. Recently she drew attention with the claim that “the high number of tests conducted in neighboring Poland may not reflect reality, since the statistics include results of ‘temperature measurements.’”

But what do you expect from a person who became Stepanov’s deputy without even realizing where she was getting into?

Now the position of first deputy minister is vacant. It won’t stay that way for long. Because one interesting gentleman has already filed his declaration and is preparing to take this post.

This gentleman is Ihor Ivashchenko. An authorized person of LLC Link-Medital with signing authority. I have written about this company.

This company is known for several high-profile scandals related to winning tenders to supply medical equipment and materials, including for hemodialysis, to various hospitals in Ukraine. Just last year Link-Medital signed contracts with Ukrainian hospitals for more than 1,3 billion UAH.

The current minister Stepanov, while heading the Odesa Regional State Administration, had ties with this Mr. Ivashchenko. Link-Medital received the exclusive right to supply consumables for hemodialysis procedures. Each year this amount is 30 million hryvnias. Which are provided for by the regional target program “Affordable Medicine for 2018-2020 years,” funded from the state budget. And the recipient of these funds is the private company Link-Medital. Because the hemodialysis equipment donated by Stepanov in Odesa, as it turned out, can only operate with materials supplied by Link-Medital.

Now this person, with whom Minister Stepanov definitely has a conflict of interest and a commercial past, will become his right-hand man. Do you think these are new faces and new personnel ready to lay down their lives to work day and night to reform medicine in Ukraine? Or is it something else?

Rhetorical question, isn’t it?

You will not find any mentions about Ivashchenko himself. Only his declaration is publicly available. And it says that he received his salary precisely from LLC Link-Medital.

Consumables for hemodialysis are an interesting topic in general. Do you remember the scandal with SBU high-ranking official Semyochko, who pressured a firm that refused to include a corrupt component in the price of hemodialysis consumables? Then the firm accused Semyochko of the deaths of 200 people who did not receive timely treatment precisely because supplies from abroad were blocked and there was an unwillingness to pay kickbacks of 100-thousand (details in the article “Counterintelligence and Dialysis Earnings. Who Does Counterintelligence Officer Serhiy Semyochko Work For?”).

So, this is a lucrative, fat topic. On this market LLC Link-Medital was grazing (because calling it a competitive business is hard to stomach).

If you Google the LLC name, you will read a lot of interesting things about this. About the market division between two companies, about scandals related to tenders, and about the leaders and their involvement in various dubious schemes.

Now Ihor Ivashchenko will become the second most important person in this strategically significant ministry.

But that’s not all. At one time, after the change of power, the director Oleg Petrenko left the National Health Service of Ukraine (NHSU). He was, by the way, offered a ministerial post. Unfortunately for all of us, Oleg did not agree. Presumably, he knew things that we did not suspect.

To be clear, the NHSU is the structure that manages all the funds for medical needs. And that is, for a moment, 72 billion hryvnias.

A competition for this position was announced back in January 2019 year. Recently all three finalists, so to speak, were rejected by the current head of the Ministry of Health.

They did not suit him, can you imagine? All correct and entirely in Stepanov’s logic—when the competition was announced, he wasn’t in the ministry. It would have been the last thing if 72 billions of our money had gone past Stepanov!

And now? Quote from Stepanov: “I conducted interviews in accordance with the law with three people who won this competition, today I submitted a protocol decision on the absence of a winner of the competition. Also today an order was adopted on the necessity of appointing the head of the NHSU to the vacant position by concluding a contract on serving in the civil service in accordance with current legislation.”

I’ll translate this verbal abracadabra for you: this means that the person who will manage this CRITICALLY IMPORTANT service will now be someone appointed outside the procedures. Most likely whoever Stepanov points to.

How do you like that “kitten con”?

The highest number of points in the competition was scored by acting NHSU director Oksana Movchan; second place was taken by NHSU deputy chair Natalia Ryabtseva; and third by the director of the NHSU Contracting Department, Andriy Vilensky.

Oksana Movchan wrote on Facebook: “The meeting with the minister was, rather, a formal step that he had to take in order to move on to an already formed plan.” Here is her post:

And somehow I do not doubt that Stepanov and his whole little operation will take advantage of the quarantine and squeeze the situation for maximum gain—and appoint someone without a competition, and procure various useless items with kickbacks and inflated prices (as already happened with medical protective suits), and scare people with bans like not going to parks.

Actually, we are in trouble. And most citizens simply do not realize it.

In the photo: Minister of Health Maksym Stepanov and his wife Natalia Stepanova, a nephrologist of the highest category, co-owner of the companies Eduget, Specagrotech, Garnomedika, FAIR PIXEL, Country of Wishes, Miskpostachzbut.

Zoya Kazanzhi, published on the author’s Facebook page