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What part of the medical services must be free?

13.12.2002   
Ludmila Kucherenko, Poltava
Several months ago the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine approved the resolution about the creation of the list of the guaranteed free medical services rendered in state and communal medical establishments. However, in the Poltava oblast the patients do not know until now which services are free and which must be paid.
As it is known, several months ago the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine approved the resolution on the creation of the list of the guaranteed free medical services rendered in state and communal medical establishments. However, in the Poltava oblast the patients do not know until now which services are free and which must be paid.

When Nadiya Miakushko, a deputy head of the Poltava oblast organisation of the People’s Rukh, tried to explain this situation at one of the sittings in presence of the top officials of the oblast administration, Villiy Volchenko, the head of the oblast health protection directorate, told indefinably: "We are working on this problem".

And at this time we, patients, pay for analyses and for examinations, not to mention the veiled payments for operations and the medical drugs bought for our own money. Various funds acting at medical establishments force the patients to pay the charitable contributions without burdening themselves with giving accounts to the sponsors. A patient obtains some document, but it is not clear from this document when and by whom the money was paid, who received the money, and where this money will get – to the till or to somebody’s pocket. Although the Poltava public raised this question more than once, the competent organs did not show any interest in this topic.

I believe, – N. Miakushko said, – that the protracted disregard of the resolution of the Cabinet of Ministers on the side of the oblast health directorate and the retardation of creating the list of free medical services is caused namely by the "opaque" activities of the so-called charity funds. Such cynical form of charity discredits the status and the role of a doctor, since such doctor not only violates the Hippocratic oath, he also abuses laws forcing a patient to contribute money to these funds. A doctor must treat, and all other problems must be solved by those, who organize the public life in Ukraine, including the sphere of health protection.

To illustrate her words Ms. Miakushko gave the following example. A woman-worker of the Kremenchug furniture plant needed the urgent and expensive operation for replacing the mitral valve in the Kyiv Amosov institute. The trade union gathered 5000 UAH for the operation, since the woman had not such sum. And what if she was jobless? So, it seems that until the list of free medical services would be worked out, some people would be doomed to die in the prime of life!
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