Health Ministry considers ineffective work of Medical Procurement of Ukraine in 2020 – Stepanov

The Ministry of Health considers the activities of the state-owned enterprise Medical Procurement of Ukraine in 2020 to be ineffective, Health Minister Maksym Stepanov said at a press briefing in Kyiv on Wednesday.

“The Health Ministry considers ineffective the activities of the state-owned enterprise Medical Procurement of Ukraine in 2020. In 2020, the Ministry of Health instructed the Medical Procurement of Ukraine to carry out purchases of 483 items of pharmaceuticals. Everything was received in June-September 2020, as of December 31, tenders for 103 items were failed. These are drugs for oncology and cardiac diseases. To be on the safe side, the Ministry of Health will purchase medicines from other sources,” he said.

Stepanov said that the information about the suspension of the activities of the state-owned enterprise Medical Procurement of Ukraine due to the withdrawal of funding by the ministry does not correspond to reality.

“As for the suspension of the operating activities of the Medical Procurement of Ukraine due to the alleged withdrawal of funding by the Ministry of Health, this is another fake. There is no stoppage; the enterprise is working as usual. The financial plan was approved on December 10. As for the budget program passport: it is approved after adopting the budget. The budget came into effect on December 28, 2020, and immediately after that, documents begin to be prepared, passports of budget programs are approved. This usually happens at the end of January, sometimes later. In Ukraine, not a single budget program passport has yet been approved, and the activities of enterprise have not ceased. The salary of the Medical Procurement of Ukraine is paid in full, it was paid on December 30, 2020,” the minister said.

Earlier, the state-owned enterprise Medical Procurement of Ukraine announced the blocking of its work due to the failure of the Ministry of Health to approve the temporary plan for the use of budgetary funds for 2021, which makes it impossible to finance the operating activities of the enterprise.