«They grow like mushrooms. They do not fulfil the functions»: Mykolaiv city health department complains about private family outpatient clinics

Head of Mykolaiv Health Department Iryna Shamrai criticised private clinics, archive photo NikVesti

The head of Mykolaiv's health department, Iryna Shamrai, complained about the quality of services provided by private family clinics that sign declarations with Mykolaiv residents for family doctor services and fail to fulfil their functions.

Iryna Shamrai spoke about this during a meeting of the City Council's Commission on Legality, according to NikVesti.

The city health department said that in Mykolaiv, an extensive network of private clinics is developing in primary healthcare, which sign declarations with «young and healthy» patients.

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«They work with young, healthy people, and do not accept disabled people. We do vaccinate children. I met with the staff of the sixth centre, and they all say that the First Private Clinic, which has signed declarations with children, sends all children to the 6th centre for vaccinations. We can't refuse them, but the parents' wish is to continue to be seen in private primary healthcare centres,» said Iryna Shamrai.

According to her, private clinics in Mykolaiv do not fulfil their functions, as patients are forced to go to municipal primary healthcare centres.

«All these private individual entrepreneurs, clinics, primary healthcare centres are growing like mushrooms. Because there is no need for resuscitation, anaesthesia, a single doctor can set up a table and chair, get a licence and be a family doctor, and sign a declaration. We deal with complaints and appeals from patients almost every day about the fact that they do not fulfil their functions. There have been cases when we have helped people who have signed declarations in private clinics to resolve issues of hearing and dental prosthetics. We still solve all these issues, because these are our city residents, our patients. But in such cases, we simply ask them to sign a declaration with our centres so that we can allocate all these funds for diapers and so on,» said Irina Shamrai.

Earlier, Oleksandr Mosin, a deputy of the Mykolaiv Regional Council from the party «Proposal», expressed the opinion that healthcare in Mykolaiv should be private, although he had previously expressed the opposite opinion.