Law enforcement officers are massively detaining the heads of MSEC. However, an analysis of court cases shows that after high-profile revelations and statements by the authorities about the inevitability of punishment, not a single medical worker ended up behind bars, notes Ekonomicheskaya Pravda.
Over the past month, the domestic information space has been rocked by news about the detention of employees of medical and social expert commissions (MSEC) in various regions of the country. The functions of the latter include conducting examinations of persons to establish disability.
The most daring was the story of the head of the MSEC of the Khmelnytsky region, Tatyana Krupa. During the investigation into the facts of illegal registration of disability for men who avoided mobilization, law enforcement officers conducted searches in Krupa’s offices and place of residence.
In her office they found $100 thousand, medical documents with signs of forgery, as well as lists of draft dodgers with names and fictitious diagnoses.
In addition, more than $5 million, 300 thousand euros, 5 million UAH, branded jewelry, as well as documents that may indicate money laundering through business projects were seized from the official’s home. During the investigation, Krupa tried to get rid of some of the money by throwing two bags containing half a million dollars through the window.
Such news has already become commonplace. In October, law enforcement officers exposed the head of the MSEC in Kharkov and his accomplices, who, in exchange for bribes, issued false disability certificates to conscripts, and the head of the interdistrict MSEC in the Kiev region, who is accused of helping men obtain disability classes without objective grounds. In September, a colleague from the Poltava region and an accomplice were detained, who, for $9,000, were registering disability for the wives of those serving military service.
After each such case, accompanied by public condemnation, the authorities promise severe punishment to the suspects in order to reassure citizens and prevent the recurrence of cases of bribery among doctors.
However, an analysis of data from the Register of Court Decisions over the past three years shows something different: high-profile cases end in formal sentences or suspended sentences.
In the court register since the beginning of the great war, the ED found 216 verdicts in which the activities of MSEC appear. In 50 of them, the accused parties are doctors and members of the commission. They are usually charged with several articles of the Criminal Code: 369-2 (abuse of influence), 368 (bribe), 358 (forgery of documents), 114-1 (obstruction of the activities of the Armed Forces of Ukraine) and 368-5 (illegal enrichment).
It was under the latter article that on October 7, the court arrested Krupa with an alternative bail of UAH 500 million. This is the fastest way, because this money was not in her declaration, while other crimes, for example, forging certificates of unfitness, still need to be documented and proven in the manner prescribed by law.
Therefore, for now this is only an assumption by society and investigations, probably not unfounded, that $6 million in cash and other valuables are somehow connected with Krupa’s work as chairman of MSEC. Theoretically, other articles should appear in her case, in particular about forgery of documents and obstruction of the activities of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
At first glance, the sentences in such cases sound harsh: five years in prison, as in the case of the head of an outpatient clinic in Odessa, who organized a criminal group to issue fictitious certificates. However, in practice, the majority of convicts are released from serving their sentences with a probationary period (usually by agreement with the prosecutor to admit guilt) even without confiscation of property.
The ED counted only two sentences without probation against medical workers. The first concerns the chairman of the inter-district Kyiv MSEC, who was sentenced to five years in prison, the second - a radiologist at the Lviv Regional Hospital, who was sentenced to four years.
However, both cases relate to the events of 2020-2021, that is, before the start of the big war. In addition, the first case is under appeal and the verdict has not yet entered into force, and the second case was reclassified by the Supreme Court in the summer of 2024 to a lighter article and awarded a fine of UAH 85 thousand instead of imprisonment.
Impunity fuels permissiveness, which leads to new cases of corruption. The lack of real verdicts only increases the feeling of impunity among officials.
The problem with proving the guilt of the organizers of corruption schemes in MSEC is not the only one. A similar situation is observed with those who smuggle draft dodgers abroad or rob the state during war.
