The Health Minister called on the Kyiv authorities to address the extortion of doctors

Health Minister Viktor Lyashko called on the Kyiv city government to respond to the scheme—exposed by law enforcement—of systematically extorting money from surgeons at a municipal medical facility in the capital, and to protect employees from pressure.

According to the prosecutor’s office, hospital management demanded money from doctors in exchange for the opportunity to perform surgeries, threatening them with loss of their medical license, transfer to another position, or cancellation of their exemption from mobilization if they refused. The head of the Ministry of Health emphasized that officials have no right to use their official positions to blackmail subordinates or extort money from patients for services that have already been paid for by the state.

Viktor Lyashko stressed that such abuses undermine trust in the entire healthcare system, and doctors who report being pressured must be protected. The Ministry of Health expressed its readiness to cooperate with city authorities and law enforcement agencies to hold the guilty parties accountable and ensure the uninterrupted operation of the facility.

Lyashko wrote about this on Facebook.

Under the procedural guidance of the Kyiv City Prosecutor’s Office, two department heads and the medical director of one of the capital’s municipal hospitals were notified that they were suspected of extorting money from doctors. The department head, who was directly involved in collecting the money, kept lists of all the surgeries performed by each doctor and carefully calculated how much money each of them had to turn over to the so-called “slush fund” each week, and he himself specified this amount. At the same time, no one cared whether the doctors were supposed to take this money from patients or out of their own pockets. 

A scheme to sell disability status for thousands of dollars was uncovered in Kyiv.