Due to the financial crisis, the Pivdennoukrainsk Hospital is planning to close two wards and make staff redundant

Due to a difficult financial situation, Pivdennoukrainsk City Hospital is considering the possibility of reducing staff numbers, as well as closing the maternity and paediatric wards.

The issue was discussed during a meeting of the Pivdennoukrainsk City Council’s Health Committee on 1 June, according to NikVesti.

As noted by committee members, due to the specifics of healthcare reform and insufficient funding for certain healthcare service packages, the hospital has found itself in a difficult financial position. A special working group was set up in May to find ways out of the crisis. However, no final proposals have been agreed upon yet.

At the same time, the hospital administration is already considering the possibility of optimising the hospital’s operations, in particular by closing the obstetrics and gynaecology and paediatric wards. According to committee members, the hospital’s director, Serhii Lupov, proposed that doctors’ salaries be funded from the city budget.

«What the hospital wants is: «Give us funds from the local budget». We have a financial department which has said that we cannot provide funds for salaries. This is clearly stipulated. As for the other proposals we put forward, we haven’t reached any conclusions,» noted one of the commission members, who also works in the working group.

The committee noted that from 1 June, staff in the maternity and paediatric wards will begin to be officially warned of possible redundancies. Such warnings have also been issued previously.

«You know that there has already been a case where hospital staff were warned about redundancies and given notices to sign. It later turned out that this was done to draw attention to them. But people are worried because they might lose their jobs,» noted the speaker.

Members of the committee also pointed out that they had not yet received full information regarding the hospital’s financial activities, staffing levels, moonlighting, and the implementation of the National Health Service of Ukraine’s care packages. Furthermore, the audit of the hospital’s financial status, which the city’s economic department was tasked with conducting, has not yet been completed.

Committee member Vadym Uzunov emphasised that the closure of the maternity and paediatric wards would have serious consequences for the community. According to him, the maternity and paediatric wards are among the most important in the hospital, and if their downsizing begins, it will lead to the downsizing of other related services.

«Everyone understands what it means to cut the maternity ward. That is, after the maternity ward is cut, the antenatal clinic will have to be cut. After the antenatal clinic, some laboratory or something else will have to be cut. In other words, all these departments are interconnected,» noted the committee member.

Hospital director Serhii Lupov was not present at the meeting of the parliamentary committee. During the discussion, it was noted that he had previously ceased participating in the work of a specially created group tasked with finding ways for the hospital to emerge from its financial crisis. That is precisely why he was not invited to the meeting of the relevant committee.

Following the discussion, the committee decided to recommend that the hospital management refrain from taking any action to reduce staff in the maternity and paediatric wards until the working group has completed its work and prepared its conclusions regarding the future operation of the medical facility.

It should be noted that on 29 May, members of the Mykolaiv City Council unanimously removed the issue of reorganising the city’s medical facilities from the session’s agenda. It still needs to be finalised.

Reorganisation of Mykolaiv’s hospitals

As is known, the Mykolaiv Health Department has put forward an initiative to reduce the number of hospitals in the city from six to three by merging them. In addition to the merger of hospitals, Maternity Hospital №3 will also be affected by the reform; unlike other city maternity hospitals, which were merged with hospitals last year and became departments, it remained an independent legal entity.

• The Emergency Medical Care Hospital (EMCH) and Hospital №4 are planned to be merged with Hospital №1;
• Maternity Hospital №3 and Children’s Hospital №2 to Hospital №3 (Dubky);
• Hospital №5 (Korabelnyi District) will not be affected by the reform.

Iryna Shamrai, Head of the Mykolaiv Health Department, explained during the committee meeting that the need to reorganise and merge large hospitals in Mykolaiv this year is due to the requirements of the National Health Service of Ukraine regarding full funding for medical services provided.

Olena Kiseliova, Chair of the Mykolaiv City Council’s Legislative Affairs Committee and a councillor for European Solidarity, strongly criticised the plans to reorganise the city’s healthcare network.

Merger of polyclinics

Five out of seven medical centres in the city may also disappear. The decision, which is due to be put before the city council for consideration, provides for the merger of five polyclinics with the other two — №2 and №3. Specifically, it is planned to merge polyclinics №1 and №7 with Centre №2, and polyclinics №4, №5 and №6 with Centre №3.

Meanwhile, staff at Primary Healthcare Centre №1 in Mykolaiv have appealed to the head of the regional military administration, Vitalii Kim, the city’s mayor, Oleksandr Sienkevych, and the National Health Service, calling for an assessment of the actions of the city’s health department, which seeks to close profitable family clinics. Medical staff report psychological pressure, mass redundancies and the devastating consequences of this decision for patients and the city’s healthcare system.

Commenting on the medical staff’s opposition to the reorganisation, Iryna Shamrai, head of the Mykolaiv Health Department, pointed out that some of the heads of Primary Health Care Centres are acting in an interim capacity and may not possess the necessary qualifications.

Furthermore, the staff of Primary Healthcare Centre (PHC) №6 in Mykolaiv are asking not to be merged with other institutions and to be allowed to continue operating as a separate centre with legal status.