Mykolaiv Regional Council Member Calls on the Ministry of Health and the Prosecutor General's Office to Check Disability of Officials

A deputy from Mykolaiv has asked the Ministry of Health and the Office of the Prosecutor General of Ukraine to check the activities of certain officials.

Svitlana Fedorova, a deputy of the Mykolaiv Regional Council, posted this on her social media page.

According to Fedorova, the officials who need to be checked by law enforcement agencies include the head of the Mykolaiv City Council, Oleksandr Senkevych, the deputy head of the Mykolaiv Regional State Administration, Yuriy Granaturov, and the head of the Health Department of the Mykolaiv City Council, Iryna Shamrai.

As well as heads of several medical institutions: Oleksandr Demianov (Emergency Hospital), Oleksandr Plitkin (Regional Children's Hospital) and Vira Belyakova (Mykolaiv Medical and Social Expert Commission).

Svitlana Fedorova suggested that the officials be dismissed from their posts and even sent to life imprisonment. The MP claims that these officials received group II disabilities in 2023.

In October, a major scandal erupted in Ukraine: prosecutors issued fictitious disabilities to receive payments. Among those involved are law enforcement officers from the south of the country and heads of medical and social expert commissions. In Mykolaiv region, only 12 prosecutors, or 4.5% of the total number, have the status of a person with a disability.

Searches were conducted at the home of the head of the Mykolaiv Medical and Social Expert Commission (MSEC) and her son as part of an investigation into a scheme to evade mobilization. During the searches, $450,000 in cash and a collection of jewelry were seized. Vera Belyakova and her son also purchased four apartments in new buildings in Odesa during the full-scale war. The total cost of these apartments is 300 thousand dollars.

In this regard, the Government approved a plan to combat corruption among medical and social expert commissions. The Ministry of Health has also presented a draft law on changing the process of health assessment and disability determination. And Prosecutor General Andriy Kostin announced that he was resigning from his post due to the facts of abuse in the prosecution system.

Law enforcement also reported that since the beginning of the year alone, 77 people involved in corruption crimes in the field of MSEC have been exposed. In addition, 7 criminal groups were identified among the representatives of the commissions.

In early November, Ukraine launched a reform of the MSEC aimed at eliminating the old system and introducing a more efficient mechanism focused on human needs. The assessment will be available in three formats: remotely, in absentia, or by on-site examination.

Анна Бальчінос