Former deputy head of the Ministry of Health detained on suspicion of illegal organ transplantation

The former deputy head of the Ministry of Health and 10 other doctors were detained on suspicion of violating the law on human organ transplantation.

According to the source, the ex-deputy’s accomplices are doctors from the State Institution “Heart Institute of the Ministry of Health of Ukraine”, the Volyn Regional Clinical Hospital and the Central City Clinical Hospital of Kyiv.

They are accused of organizing a scheme for “illegal seizure of anatomical materials from people who are in a helpless state and otherwise dependent on offenders, for the purpose of their further transplantation.”

As Lb.ua clarifies, we are talking about Mikhail Zagriychuk, who was Deputy Minister of Health Zoryana Skaletskaya.

He now works as the head of the department of abdominal organ transplantation and surgery at the Heart Institute, which is headed by Boris Todurov.

Criminal proceedings have been initiated under Parts 1 and 2 of Art. 255, part 5 art. 143, and part 3 of Art. 362 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine - violation of the procedure for transplantation of human anatomical materials, creation, management of a criminal community or criminal organization, as well as participation in it and unauthorized actions with information that is processed in electronic computers (computers), automated systems, computer networks or stored on the media of such information, committed by a person who has the right to access it.

All 11 persons were informed of suspicion. “According to two interlocutors familiar with the case, the investigation suspects that a group of doctors was selling the transplant queue, and that transplant coordinators were involved and received funds for fraud with the queue. All this was done allegedly so that the Heart Institute would receive organs for transplants,” the publication writes.