Mykolaiv plans to renovate rehabilitation centre at orphanage: it will cost ₴4.5 million

The premises of the Centre for Medical Rehabilitation and Palliative Care for Children, which is located at the regional children's home, are to be renovated in Zavodskyi district of Mykolaiv.

The relevant tender has been published on the public procurement platform Prozorro, according to NikVesti.

The cost of the works is preliminarily estimated at 4.5 million hryvnias, but it may vary depending on the bidders' proposals. The customer is the municipal non-profit enterprise «Mykolaiv Regional Children's Clinical Hospital», of which the Centre is a branch.

In a commentary to NikVesti, Oleksandr Plitkin, chief physician of the children's clinical hospital, explained that the centre is planning to renovate the wards and set up a new mental health department.

«There is still a rehabilitation centre there, but we will bring it in line with the requirements of the National Health Service. There will also be a mental health unit, with an even greater emphasis on it,» said Plitkin.

According to the tender documentation, the children's rehabilitation centre is to undergo major repairs, install new plumbing, heating, ventilation, air conditioning, electric lighting, and furnish the rooms with furniture and equipment: cabinets, tables, armchairs, chairs, sofas, laptops, refrigerators, information displays, etc.

The contractor will have to complete all these works within two months — by 15 December 2025. The tender process is currently underway, and the contractor will be selected after 28 October.

Regional Children's Hospital in Mykolaiv

In July 2023, during his visit to Mykolaiv, President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy visited the regional children's hospital. At that time, he criticised the condition of the wards in the medical facility. While in one of the wards, Volodymyr Zelenskyy noted that the room was not adapted for a comfortable stay. In particular, there were no curtain rods, curtains, or air conditioning in the ward. Following President Zelensky's criticism of the condition of the wards at the Mykolaiv Oblast Children's Hospital, the institution began renovating the surgical department and installed air conditioning in eight wards.

A few months later, the offices and residences of Oleksandr Plitkin, the chief medical officer of the Mykolaiv Oblast Children's Clinical Hospital, and his deputy, Iryna Tkachenko, were searched as part of a criminal investigation into the misappropriation, embezzlement or acquisition of property through abuse of office. The pre-trial investigation is ongoing under another article: forgery of official documents that caused grave consequences.

Four days after the searches, the deputy head of the Mykolaiv regional military administration for medicine, Yurii Hranaturov, said he was unaware of the situation. And Oleksandr Plitkin himself said that dirt was thrown on him, and the police «are telling something ephemeral».

At the same time, the permanent deputy commission of the Mykolaiv Regional Council on social policy and healthcare refused to consider and knew from the agenda the draft decision to appoint Oleksandr Plitkin as director of the «Mykolaiv Regional Children's Clinical Hospital».

Scandal in the reorganised Children's Home in Mykolaiv

In March 2025, lawyer Inna Miroshnychenko showed the conditions in which children live in the reorganised Centre for Medical Rehabilitation and Palliative Care in Mykolaiv (Regional Children's Home), which was merged with the Mykolaiv Regional Children's Hospital. She actually showed the children tied to armchairs, who are not allowed to go for walks and are forced to spend time watching TV.

The human rights activist said that according to the conditions, 89 employees were supposed to take care of the children. However, as it turned out from the data of the Ombudsman's Office monitoring group, only two employees were looking after the children. She called the conditions in which the children were kept inhumane.