Irina Koval and Oksana Korchinskaya
"I don't care whether it's a family or not," says Oksana Korchinskaya, head of the Okhmatdet board of trustees. "This is the first hospital like this being built in 22 years of independence!"
Indeed, a hospital designed to save hundreds of children's lives must be built regardless of the name of the minister or prime minister who will open it.
But the Ukrainian reality is such that interested parties are prepared to block construction simply because the money will end up in the wrong hands.
The story of the construction of a new building for the Okhmatdet Children's Hospital in central Kyiv began in 2011, when the project, with a total cost of 1,8 billion hryvnias (US$250 million at the exchange rate at the time), was approved.
Naturally, a pool of all sorts of "overseers," "decisives," and "social activists" who joined them immediately began to form around this lump sum. As time has shown, these same social activists eventually became both "overseers" and "decisives."
And to strengthen their lobbying positions, these "social activists" occupy powerful government positions. Judge for yourself: embezzling $250 million is worth buying any position, even a ministerial or parliamentary one, for a few hundred thousand dollars. The profit, as they say, is obvious.
To date, financing the construction work and purchasing equipment has cost the state $50 million. And by the most conservative estimates, experts believe at least half of this sum has ended up in the pockets of the project's managers.
The focus is on Iryna Koval, a protégé of the "Family." She is currently the director of the state-owned enterprise Ukrmedproektbud and represents the project's client.
But she was “involved” in this mega-project as the director of the general contractor for the project, Ukrprofmed LLC, which is carrying out the construction and equipping of the new building for Okhmatdet.
A wonderful system: I order the work myself, design it myself, execute it myself, and accept it myself. What more could you want?
Ukprofmed LLC's primary business is distributing medications and producing disinfectants. But, as the saying goes, building a hospital and selling dichlorvos are essentially the same thing for Irina Koval.
This is how a company selling disinfectant liquids became the designer of a highly complex technical facility – a unique pediatric bone marrow transplant clinic, unparalleled in Ukraine.
Koval needed to gain control over the construction client, general contractor, and general designer in order to have unconditional control over every penny of the project.
To add gloss to this unsightly story, prominent media personalities were assigned to the project's implementation: Oksana Korchinskaya, who chaired the Okhmatdet Board of Trustees, and Dmitry Sherembey, head of the NGO "Patients of Ukraine." They were intended to serve as a lightning rod for warding off unnecessary public attention and as the project's spokespersons.
It's worth noting that they succeeded. No changes of power or revolutions have advanced their position, but only strengthened it.
Judge for yourself: according to data from the NGO "Medical Control," $13 million was spent on purchasing equipment from dichlorvos manufacturer Ukrprofmed alone.
Moreover, according to MP Tatyana Donetsk, kickbacks on equipment accounted for over 50% of this sum. This was made possible by Iryna Koval's lobbying for the procurement process to be conducted without competitive bidding, without tenders, in preparation for Euro 2012. Cynical? Certainly. But what won't you do "for the children?"
Even more money was made from installing the building's façade, which cost, just think about it, $11 million! So, by the most conservative estimates, Irina Koval has pocketed at least $25-30 million to date.
Currently, the cost per square meter of construction is $4650, which is reminiscent of Russian “Olympic construction projects.”
However, without technical expertise from the government and the involvement of European managers from similar large clinics, nothing will work: there is a risk that the new Okhmatdet building will be of the same quality as Sochi hotels, with rusty water and falling doors.
Neither Ukrainian doctors nor Ukrainian builders will be able to create the hospital of the future—if only because they've never done it before. Only European, American, and Asian representatives of a specific business—clinic construction—know how to build modern hospitals. So far, no one is planning to invite such specialists. This means that the new Okhmatdet building can outperform its European counterparts only in one, completely non-medical, aspect: construction cost.
And there is still at least $200 million to be developed.
Naturally, no one intends to give up such a pie, and judging by the fact that the fight has moved into the public sphere, Koval and her PR team have no intention of retreating.
When the idea arose of allowing companies with international experience in similar projects, specifically the Austrian company Vamed, to participate in the tender for the construction of Okhmatdet, the idea was met with strong resistance from Irina Koval.
At an urgently convened press conference attended by Irina Koval, Oksana Korchinskaya, Anna Gopko, and Dmytro Kuleba, this company (which, by the way, operates in 72 countries) was accused of disrupting tenders and attempting to corrupt officials.
This, excuse me, already smells like an international scandal, since just a year ago, at a meeting with the Federal Chancellor of Austria, President Poroshenko thanked the Austrian government and business for a number of initiatives, in particular, the equipping of Okhmatdet.
Member of Parliament Tatyana Donetsk has decided to continue her fight for transparency in the selection of a contractor and has prepared a letter to Prime Minister Yatsenyuk demanding an inspection of the construction work and the dismissal of Ms. Koval.
Incidentally, the Prime Minister recently held a working meeting attended by Health Minister Alexander Kvitashvili, as well as People's Deputies Tatyana Donetsk, Anna Gopko, and Oksana Korchynska. Valery Dubil, Victor Krivenko, Victoria Ptashnik.
According to Donetsk, Yatsenyuk stated that he considered it necessary to replace the head of the state enterprise Ukrmedproektbud, Koval, even before construction began. "She held this position under Viktor Yanukovych and did not undergo the lustration procedure."
But despite all these statements, Irina Koval's position remains unshakable. She cannot give up on the idea of utilizing the $200 million, so the decision was made to take aggressive action.
Given the scale of the scam being planned, even the votes of parliamentary factions were used in the bargaining process when voting for the dismissal of Health Minister Kvitashvili (who extended Koval's contract).
According to available information, factions loyal to Koval will vote for Kvitashvili's resignation only in exchange for guarantees that the new minister will not fire her and will allow her to rule undividedly over the development of the $200 million.
So far, only Boris Todurov has given such guarantees. It is known that Todurov (director of the Kyiv Heart Center) has already reached an agreement with the coalition factions regarding his appointment. The agreement primarily focused on Koval's continued work and the budget embezzlement. According to Heart Center staff, Todurov is so obsessed with the ministerial post that he has stopped performing surgeries and periodically goes on drinking binges, awaiting access to the Ministry of Health's purse. Koval, of course, is interested in this. You'll agree, it's much easier to manage an alcoholic than a normal person.
What we should expect from this entire company is press conferences and commissioned materials in the media, supposedly exposing those who have nothing to do with Okhmatdet.
The tactic is simple and tried: sling mud at your opponents, accuse them of corruption and all manner of sins, in order to force them to justify themselves, thereby deflecting attention from yourself. This utilizes Joseph Goebbels's famous principle: "The bigger the lie, the more likely it will be believed."
Knowing Irina Koval and her PR team's creative talent for all sorts of theatrical shows, we can assume that ahead awaits flashy, paid-for "for the sake of publicity," all sorts of compromising material, and other insinuations.
Koval's motto is: the end justifies the means. Unfortunately, her goal isn't to build a hospital and save Ukrainian children, but to appropriate public funds. And the means to achieve this are irrelevant to her.
In our country, they don’t hesitate to make fabulous money from the grief of parents of children with cancer.
At the same time, no one doubts that such a hospital is desperately needed in a country with the highest rates of childhood illness in Europe. It's not just about the health, but also the lives of young Ukrainians. Okhmatdyt should undoubtedly be completed, but the funding should be for the hospital, not for sanitary pads like Koval. Only then will our children receive modern treatment and stay healthy.
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