30.08.2024 Utility scams

How Kharkiv medicine suffers from corruption of Terekhov and his deputies

Last year, the Kharkiv City Council decided to reorganize the Prof. L.L. Hirschman City Clinical Hospital No. 14. Now the process of its gradual merger with the City Clinical Multidisciplinary Hospital № 17 is underway, which means that the city will be left without another institution that would provide medical care to Kharkiv residents.

The issue of the distribution of the hospital’s property is still open. Our sources have learned that the main building of the institution has already been eyed by Mayor Terekhov, who owns the OnClinic chain. The rest of the hospital’s land is planned to be used for construction. Therefore, this issue is already under the personal control of the deputy mayor and, at the same time, the curator of urban planning issues, Kuzmin. The latter, in the interests of pro-Russian oligarch Abramovych, has already seized more than one plot and issued more than one permit for the lease, sale and use of municipal land.

Despite the seemingly already decided fate of Hospital No. 14, the Investigation Department of the Kharkiv District Police Department No. 1 of the Main Directorate of the National Police in the Kharkiv Region, under the procedural guidance of the Kyiv District Prosecutor’s Office, finally began to investigate what we wrote about 2 years ago. Now, law enforcement officers are asking the investigating judge of the Kyiv District Court to grant temporary access to things and documents within the framework of criminal proceedings №42022222010000084, initiated on 08/03/2022 under Part 5 of Article 191 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine.

At that time, we reported that a pharmacy, registered as an individual entrepreneur Trinyak V.Y., operates on the basis of the Hospital, controlled by the management, including Kovtun, and registered as an individual entrepreneur. Instead, the latter receive a non-fiscal receipt, which they then hand over to doctors before performing surgeries. At the same time, patients must purchase the listed products only at the specified pharmacy. This is done in order to encourage further manipulation and shadow profits.

In addition, it was found that the pharmacy was illegally selling medicines, tools and equipment provided as humanitarian aid from international partner organizations, as well as medicines provided by the state under the program for free provision of medicines to citizens in need.

But this is not the end. After analyzing the Hospital’s public procurements, we found out that the winners were almost always legal entities controlled by Kovtun. We are talking about Alvis-M LLC, BMU Burspetsstroymontazh LLC, Ihor Mukhopad, Ihor Volodymyrovych Mukhopad, STAN LLC and others. 

Thanks to this cooperation, in 2022 alone, the study estimated budget losses of UAH 10 million, all due to the formation of an artificial tax credit in the real sector of the economy.

Numerous manipulations also took place with the purchase and sale of medical equipment, such as the ALLEGRETTO Ophthalmic Excimer Laser System (approximate cost of 300 thousand euros) or an ultrasound device for cataract removal and retinal surgery Alcon Constellation Vison System (USA), a microscope manufactured by Moller Wedal (USA) and others. The equipment was actively used in the hospital, but later, with the assistance of the management represented by Kovtun, it was sold to controlled entities at a reduced price. For example, for one of the systems already mentioned, they received UAH 300 thousand instead of EUR 300 thousand.

All of this turned the formerly leading ophthalmology hospital into a plundered medical institution.

As stated in the case file, during the investigation, law enforcement officers sent demands to Hospital No. 14 to request documents confirming or refuting the information, to which they received an unequivocal letter of refusal. So now, access will be granted by a court order.

I wonder if law enforcement will see the case through? Considering the personal assistance of Terekhov and his assistant, lawyer Meniv, in the complete reorganization of the medical institution. We remember how a few years ago the mayor said that he would help fight corruption and Kovtun’s illicit enrichment, and now it turns out that he himself has taken his side. So Terekhov sold his own interests in exchange for a new location for OnClinic?

We also have questions about how one of the most popular excimer lasers for vision correction from Ophthalmics was taken out of Ophthalmics with Kovtun’s assistance six months before the invasion and transported to Russia through Sumy region? Why hasn’t the Specialized Defense Prosecutor’s Office investigated this fact yet?

Let’s summarize the situation around Hospital #14: Kovtun, having left Hospital No. 14 named after Hirschman, left no trace of the “International Medical Center Ophthalmic”, to which he was not de jure involved from 2005 (the year of its establishment) to 2017. Being a part of the medical institution, he made a multimillion-dollar fortune, but, as we can see, this was not enough for him.

Now, thanks to Kovtun’s assistance and the city’s leadership’s connivance with his activities, Kharkiv has lost the oldest hospital in Ukraine and the International Medical Center Ophthalmic, which specialized in vision care. See photos of the consequences of Kovtun’s activities below.

Read more about how the interests of the city are being sold and key areas (education, medicine) are being stolen.

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