Sienkevych: Merging Maternity Hospital №3 with the regional hospital is necessary to retain the staff

Mykolaiv Mayor Oleksandr Senkevych and City Council Secretary Dmytro Falco. Screenshot from the broadcast

In Mykolaiv, Maternity Hospital №3, located on Namiv, needs to be merged with the Mykolaiv Regional Clinical Hospital in order to retain its staff. The medical facility has now been declared loss-making.

A draft resolution on transferring the entire property complex of the Municipal Non-Profit Enterprise «Maternity Hospital №3» to the ownership of the region was considered at the session, NikVesti reports.

«This will allow it to survive in the current circumstances, in the context of healthcare reform. Today, the facility does not have enough children or enough births; it is effectively loss-making, and we are spending money,» said Mayor Oleksandr Sienkevych.

According to the mayor, the city has allocated hundreds of millions of hryvnias for the renovation and purchase of equipment for the maternity hospital, but the question now is about preserving the staff.

«Thinking pragmatically, our primary concern is for the staff of the facility. In order to preserve it, we are transferring the entire property complex and integrating it as a structural unit into the Regional Clinical Hospital to retain the staff,» said the mayor.

Oleksandr Sienkevych also said that guarantees had been discussed with the maternity ward staff alongside the head of the Mykolaiv Regional State Administration, Vitalii Kim, and the head of the Mykolaiv Regional Council, Anton Tabunschyk. The mayor said that the reorganisation would affect all healthcare facilities.

«We will follow this principle, and as part of the reorganisation of our healthcare facilities, we will ensure that all healthcare facilities in the Mykolaiv city community are reorganised and receive contracts with the National Health Service of Ukraine, which will allow them to survive, pay salaries, retain their staff, and purchase medicines and treat patients,» said the mayor.

Councillor Hanna Nord added that the maternity hospital, which is owned by the city, cannot be converted into a perinatal centre, yet such a facility is needed by Mykolaiv and the region.

It should be noted that the Mykolaiv City Council supported the decision to reorganise the city’s healthcare network, which involves the creation of a cluster hospital and the transfer of Maternity Hospital №3 to the region’s ownership.

Earlier, councillors on the Mykolaiv City Council’s health committee supported the reorganisation of the city’s hospitals. Also, Mykolaiv City Council councillor Olena Kiseliova reported that the reorganisation of Mykolaiv’s hospitals by merging them into a single structure would not lead to hospital closures or staff cuts, but is merely a change in legal form to secure additional funding from the National Health Service of Ukraine.