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MOVES by health authorities in Lviv to start charging mothers to give birth in hospital show Kiev is not giving up on plans to commercialise healthcare, communists warned today.
Lviv region health department chief Irina Mikichak said the plan is “to introduce paid delivery in our maternity hospitals,” with 60 per cent of the fee going to the doctor and 40 per cent to the hospital.
Fees will be introduced first in perinatal centres, then in the regional hospital and then in district hospitals, the Communist Party of Ukraine (KPU) said.
Paying to give birth in hospital was part of a package of medical reforms proposed by Ukraine’s Health Minister Ulyana Suprun, who was born and trained in the United States but moved to Ukraine five years ago, taking over its health ministry in 2016. She is nicknamed “Doctor Death” on the Ukrainian left for her opposition to universal healthcare.
While the ministry backed down after public anger, the measures being taken in Lviv show that the scheme is proceeding anyway, Communist Party leader Petro Symonenko said.
