BY
It is no secret that the Ukrainian #health_care_system is in desperate
needs of reform – which governmental ministry or institution of State is not?
It is an issue that is in no way assisted by the long-term absence of a
Minister of Health to drive, be responsible and accountable for, those reforms.
A strategy
does exist, but in the
absence of “ownership” of this reformation plan – and it would be foolish to
expect the Cabinet of Ministers or Prime Minister Yatseniuk to take any
responsibility for its implementation over and above the “easy” parts (for the
health care system is a poisoned chalice) in the absence of a Minister of
Health – implementation, no differently than leadership, is severely lacking.
Without leadership, ownership, responsibility and accountability, the
Ministry of Health remains as vulnerable to corruption and theft as it was
under former Health Minister Raisa Bohatyriova, who as part of the
Yanukovych regime stole tens of millions of dollars from the budget through
several schemes.
Earlier this month Ms Bohatyriova was removed from the EU sanctions
list of Yanukovych thieves having repaid the Ukrainian State the monies stolen,
making good the financial losses attributed to her. Needless to say she
remains wanted by Ukraine for the crimes committed despite the return of the
stolen funds. Mens rea and all that.
However, one very sensible reform to occur within the Ministry of Health
was to purchase medicines directly from international organisations and
producers, eliminating intermediaries that traditionally in Ukraine add no
value, but are simply used nefariously to steal budget funds.
Whilst Ms Bohatyriova and Alexander Yanukovych, both allegedly
prime beneficiaries of such scams within the Ministry of Health, are no longer
in Ukraine seeking to avoid due process/justice, not all of those whose acts
were more than preparatory to the commission of such crime, and indeed were
active accomplices in such crime, have left Ukraine. Nor sadly, have they
left their positions and roles within the Ukrainian health system – be those
roles direct or indirect.
The blog having previously attempted to raise awareness over the
ever-increasing attempts to muddy, clutter, pollute and/or antagonise the
domestic civil society space, notwithstanding the obvious dubious NGOs such as
Firtash’s “Agency for the Moderisation of Ukraine” (AMU), or Medvedchuk’s
“Ukrainian Choice”, Messrs Kuchma, Pinchuk, Nefjodov et al, will throw,
and are throwing, entities into the NGO soup too. An oligarchical fight
back within the now very influential domestic civil society space is perhaps
underway.
Thus it becomes evermore necessary to understand who sits behind and/or
funds/heavily donates to civil society entities and the specific
causes/sections of society they purport to represent. Likewise the
relationships of the nefarious, odious and scandalous to those leading civil
society entities is occasionally worth a little investigation too.
Only last week the National Medical Chamber, an NGO with 69,000 doctors
throughout a network of 25 regional offices, decried the attempts of other NGOs
to reverse the current policy of avoiding intermediaries in procurement of
drugs.
Yet such NGOs as MedKontrol, are associated with people such as former
Health Minister Bohatyriova and clearly lobby on behalf of “nefarious
schemes past” and the avoidance/delay in meeting EU standards and mechanisms
for registration of medicines – Satire perhaps demands that warning
labeling of “health care” NGOs be applied no differently to the labeling upon
medicines themselves.
With so many positives being orated and written
regarding Ukrainian civil society – and rightly so, for it will lead Ukraine to
a better place despite the political class – it is perhaps timely once again to
remind readers of the creeping oligarchisation and criminalisation into the
civil society space by the vested interests against which the vast majority of
Ukrainian civil society has taken into battle.
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