UAH 108.3 million in losses, 70 searches and 18 notices of suspicion: large-scale abuses in Medical Guarantees Programme exposed – Prosecutor General’s Office. PHOTOS
Systemic cases of illegal appropriation of budget funds were uncovered during the implementation of contracts on medical services for the population under the Medical Guarantees Programme concluded between the National Health Service of Ukraine and healthcare institutions. The preliminary amount of losses established stands at UAH 108.3 million.
This was reported by the Office of the Prosecutor General, Censor.NET reports.
What is known
It was established that the abuses were not isolated, but systemic in nature and were linked to the key principle of how the programme operates — money follows the patient. In practice, instead of medical services actually provided to citizens, certain healthcare institutions created fictitious records in the electronic system, artificially inflating the volume of such care and overstating the cost of procuring medical equipment in order to obtain budget funding.
70 searches conducted
To document and stop the illegal activity, a large-scale operation was carried out on 20 March 2026 in 18 regions of Ukraine. As part of the investigation in 26 criminal proceedings, 70 searches were conducted in Vinnytsia, Volyn, Dnipropetrovsk, Zhytomyr, Zakarpattia, the city of Kyiv, Kirovohrad, Lviv, Mykolaiv, Odesa, Poltava, Sumy, Ternopil, Kharkiv, Khmelnytskyi, Cherkasy, Chernivtsi and Chernihiv regions.
18 notices of suspicion served
So far, in 12 criminal proceedings, 18 people have been served notices of suspicion, including:
- 1 director of a subsidiary enterprise of a clinical sanatorium
- 1 individual entrepreneur
- 10 directors of municipal non-profit enterprises, including one settlement council deputy
- 2 accountants
- 4 medical workers
Notices of suspicion were served in Donetsk, Volyn, Rivne, Kirovohrad, Mykolaiv, Sumy, Kharkiv, Kherson, Chernivtsi and Chernihiv regions. In particular, the suspects were notified under Part 2 of Article 367 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine — 4; Part 5 of Article 191 — 3; Part 2 of Article 364 — 1; Part 4 of Article 190 — 1; Part 3 of Article 27, Part 4 of Article 28, Parts 2 and 3 of Article 255, and Part 2 of Article 364 — 5; Part 1 of Article 209 — 1; Part 4 of Article 191 and Part 2 of Article 366 — 3.
"The facts established in the course of the investigations indicate attempts by certain officials to systematically monetize budget funds intended for the actual treatment of patients through manipulations with the accounting of medical services," the Office of the Prosecutor General stressed.
It is noted that efforts to uncover such schemes are ongoing.
