Reorganisation of four hospitals to be completed in Mykolaiv within two months

As is known, Mykolaiv City Council members supported the decision to reorganise the city’s hospitals, which involves the creation of a cluster hospital. Consequently, three medical facilities — the Emergency Medical Care Hospital (EMCH), Hospital №1 and City Children’s Hospital №2 — will be merged with City Hospital №4.

«We have two months of work ahead of us. We need to decide on the status of these hospitals — whether they will be separate units — and whether there might be a new person to manage these four hospitals, sorting out all the processes regarding accountability, procurement and so on. And I think that over the course of these two months, we will decide with the councillors on the method of merger and who will be in charge. We will do everything possible with the council to ensure that the merger takes place in such a way as to preserve these hospitals with their structural units and all their organisational structures,» said Oleksandr Sienkevych.

Oleksandr Sienkevych explained when the merger of hospitals in Mykolaiv will be completed. Photo: Serhii Ovcharyshyn / NikVesti

According to him, this merger is necessary to receive full funding from the National Health Service of Ukraine for medical packages.

«First and foremost, we will be able to receive funding for these hospitals from the NHSU not with reductions based on coefficients such as 0.6 and so on, but in full under the packages under which these hospitals operate. In other words, this merger is not driven by the fact that we simply want to merge something because we have nothing else to do and have decided to do so. Rather, it is primarily so that we can receive funding. I would like to remind you that all our healthcare workers, both senior and mid-level medical staff, receive their salaries from the National Health Service of Ukraine through contracts for specific service packages provided to the public. These packages determine the amounts that the NHSU transfers to hospitals, and they then manage these funds, including paying salaries to medical staff,» added Oleksandr Sienkevych.

It should be recalled that the issue of hospital reorganisation was twice rejected by councillors at city council sessions. On 29 May, councillors unanimously removed the issue of merging the city’s medical institutions from the session’s agenda, as it had not been approved by the relevant and other committees.

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Following this, on 8 June, councillors again considered the issue of reorganising municipal medical institutions. However, the proposals failed to secure the necessary number of votes. As is known, the Mykolaiv Health Department put forward an initiative to reduce the number of hospitals in the city from six to three by merging them.

Iryna Shamrai, Head of the Mykolaiv Health Department, explained that the need to reorganise and merge large hospitals in Mykolaiv this year is due to the requirements of the National Health Service of Ukraine regarding full funding for medical services provided.

However, some councillors spoke out against the merger of hospitals. For instance, Olena Kyseliova, chair of the Mykolaiv City Council’s Committee on Legal Affairs and a councillor from the European Solidarity party, strongly criticised the plans to reorganise the city’s healthcare network.

Meanwhile, Olena Shaposhnikova, a councillor on the Mykolaiv City Council from the Propozytsiia party and a doctor at Family Clinic №4, spoke out against the reorganisation of primary healthcare centres. In her view, the merger will not deliver the expected savings, but may instead lead to a loss of funding, as well as patients and doctors.

Hanna Nord, chair of the Mykolaiv City Council’s Health Committee, also noted that if decisions were taken to reorganise and merge Mykolaiv’s healthcare facilities, male medical staff would lose their exemption from mobilisation.

The resolution of the issue regarding the merger of hospitals has stalled for the time being. At the session on 8 July, Mayor Oleksandr Sienkevych noted that he would discuss the reorganisation with the head of the Mykolaiv Regional State Administration, Vitalii Kim, and the city and regional health departments.

On 21 August, members of the Mykolaiv City Council’s Committee on Human Rights, Children, Family, Law and Transparency appealed to the Mykolaiv Regional State Administration, requesting that it expedite consideration of the issue of establishing a capable network of healthcare facilities.