«Our doctors are worth their weight in gold,» the medical system of Mykolaiv has been replenished with 104 intern doctors

In 2023, Mykolaiv hospitals were replenished with 104 intern doctors, but this did not solve the issue of personnel shortage in the city's medical sector.

During the briefing, the head of the health care department of the Mykolaiv City Council, Iryna Shamrai, told about this, NikVesti writes.

A third of the medics added to the staff of the city's security institutions are graduates of Petro Mohyla National University. At the same time, Iryna Shamrai notes, the staffing made it possible for the management to conclude 153 agreements with NHSU under the 31st package — this is 10 more packages than in 2022.

«There cannot be enough medical workers everywhere because there is a war going on in the country. We, like any industry, need personnel. We have 47 medical workers mobilized, they protect our country on the front lines. Today, our institutions are recognized as critical infrastructure, because the number of wounded civilians and military personnel who passed through our institutions exceeds 10,000 people. Every hand that operates, provides medical care, resuscitates, treats and examines today is worth its weight in gold. We are in great need of personnel,» said Iryna Shamrai.

Currently, the city authorities are solving the issue of providing housing to doctors who came from the currently occupied territories to support them.

«I cannot say that we are sufficiently staffed. Every surgeon, traumatologist, anesthesiologist, physiologist, therapist, CT doctor, radiologist — they are all the personnel who really enabled the medicine of the city of Mykolaiv to survive and work in rather critical conditions during the last two years,» added the head of the city health department.

It is worth noting that only recently, at the end of November, the doctors of the Mykolaiv Emergency Hospital announced that the city's health care management, together with the head doctor of the institution, plan to reduce the medical staff and one of the surgical departments. The doctors appealed to the head of the regional state administration, Vitalii Kim, with a request to save the medical institution and its staff.

In September, NikVesti reported that Oleksandr Demianov, the head of the City Emergency Hospital of the Mykolayiv City Council, signed an order to reduce the number of employees, due to the reduction of the funding of the institution by the National Health Service of Ukraine.

On March 31, 2023, there was a similar reduction of doctors and nurses, however, the chief doctor Oleksandr Demianov and the deputy head of Mykolayiv RMA Yurii Hranaturov claimed that it will affect only empty vacancies.

This turned out to be untrue, after which Vitalii Kim, the head of Mykolayiv RMA, made a speech and accused his team of having «been told one thing, but it turned out the other way around." After that, Vitalii Kim stated at a session of the Mykolaiv City Council that they were tasked not only with compensating for the lost medical staff, but also with finding new doctors that Mykolaiv needed. At the same time, Yurii Hranaturov said that the head of RMA, Vitalii Kim, intends to find a state subsidy for the payment of salaries to the doctors of the emergency medical care hospital.

Inadequate condition of hospitals

We remind that after President Volodymyr Zelenskyy criticized the condition of the wards in the Mykolaiv Regional Children's Hospital, they started repairing the surgical department and installed air conditioners in eight wards.

After this incident, the head of Mykolayiv RMA Vitalii Kim drew attention to the low speed of work of the temporary commission of the regional council on the inspection of medical institutions. He also called on residents of Mykolaiv to send complaints and suggestions regarding changes in the medical system to e-mail, so that these appeals will be considered by the relevant group. After anonymous complaints, Vitalii Kim announced the dismissal of the chief doctors of the medical facilities if he became convinced of their incompetence.

Corruption in hospitals

For the second time, the head of RMA changed this situation a month later and once again announced personnel changes. The reason for this was a different situation in the medical field of the region: the law enforcement officers exposed a large-scale scheme of making money on evasions in the Mykolaiv regional mental hospital.

After that, the court ordered a preventive measure against the policeman who was responsible for searching for evaders. However, the suspicion and the selection of a preventive measure have not yet been served on the doctors who participated in the scheme of illegal earnings, in particular on the chief doctor Viktor Taran.

Reacting to this situation, the head of the Mykolayiv RMA for the medical field, Yurii Hranaturov, said that the exposed scheme in the regional mental health center is an isolated case in the medical field of the region. He believes that the RMA health care department is not responsible for the activities of the chief physician.

At the same time, Yurii Hranaturov announced that the SBI will conduct an additional inspection at the regional mental health center to find out whether other doctors are involved in the corrupt scheme of making money on evasion.

Later it became known that the acting director of the Mykolaiv Regional Center for Mental Health, Victor Taran, who, according to the SBI, organized the scheme for the production of certificates for evaders, will remain in his post.

Reduction of doctors

However, these two cases are not the only ones in the medical field of Mykolaiv Oblast. As early as March 31, 2023, the editorial office of NikVesti received and published a copy of the order of the chief doctor of the emergency medical hospital, Oleksandr Demianov, on the reduction of the number of employees. According to him, this decision is related to underfunding: this year the hospital received only 91 million hryvnias from the National Health Service, while last year it received 128 million hryvnias.

In response to this publication, officials began to declare en masse that this decision will not affect working doctors, as it only applies to vacancies. At the same time, the health care department assured that the reduction will not affect the quality of service, and the military governor explained this by reforms in medicine.

However, NikVesti conducted its own investigation and found out that such assurances turned out to be false. It turned out that the hospital staff faced a choice: reduce the number of doctors or reduce wages. Thus, the medical staff of the hospital, which treated severely wounded people around the clock in the first months of the war, had to agree to a 25% cut in wages. This reduction creates a number of problems, in particular, 6 neurosurgeons out of 12 are left to work in neurosurgery. At the same time, not all of them have the right to operate independently.

However, in April it became known that the orders for the transfer of surgeons to 0.75 rates were canceled in the Mykolaiv Emergency Hospital.