The Ministry of Health continues to prevent private clinics from joining the medical guarantees program (MGP) and creates discriminatory conditions for their participation in a single medical space.

This opinion was expressed by participants of the Association of Private Healthcare Institutions at a press conference organized jointly with Interfax-Ukraine on Thursday.

"We have tried many times to establish a dialogue with the relevant ministry, but, unfortunately, we have been ignored in any format - official, unofficial, absolutely in all. Therefore, we were forced to address an open letter. It is a pity, but the Ministry of Health demonstrates its intentions to continue to ignore us and our problems. This is evidenced, in particular, by the regulatory documents approved after our appeal," Director of Smart Medical Center, Head of the Association of Private Healthcare Institutions of Ukraine Olena Yeschenko said.

She explained that the regulations put private clinics in non-competitive conditions next to state or municipal medical institutions. "They create artificial barriers, the purpose of which is to remove large private providers, suppliers of medical services from the system, which, ultimately, leads to unnecessary expenditure of public funds and their misuse," she said.

According to Yeschenko, this concerns the requirements of the 2025 MGP, which concern, in particular, requirements for laboratory tests, as well as the introduction of reduction factors for private clinics when paying for medical services provided under the MGP, as well as requirements that make it impossible for private institutions to be included in the capable network, and the like.

She emphasized that the issue of reserving medical workers is becoming especially relevant for private clinics. "We are talking about a number of very serious discriminatory issues, they concern, for example, reserving medical workers. Even after our appeal, the government approved a 100% quota for reserving doctors for state and municipal institutions, but this is not provided for private institutions, although many private clinics continue to operate and provide medical care to the military and the wounded at their own expense," she said.

"Thus, in our opinion, a rather corrupt component is being implemented, which contributes to the outflow of medical workers from private medicine to state and municipal institutions," Yeschenko emphasized.

According to her, there is currently a communication problem on this issue between the Ministry of Economy and the Ministry of Health. "In fact, the two ministries are trying to play off enterprises between themselves," she said.

For her part, the medical director of the Dobrobut medical network, Oleksandra Mashkevych, noted that Dobrobut, which is included in the list of critical infrastructure facilities, is also deprived of the possibility of reservation.

"The Dobrobut medical network is a critical infrastructure facility. As far as I know, there are only 11 healthcare institutions classified as critical infrastructure facilities. And I have a question: why are we not included in the resolution on reserving 100% of doctors. We will honestly say that our medical workers will most likely move to state and municipal institutions, because there is an opportunity to reserve there," she said.