Oncologist Maryna Bielotserkovska figures in three tragic stories involving patients of the private Odrex clinic: businessman Adnan Kivan, Ihor Melai, and Khrystyna Totkailo’s father. UNN examines the treatment methods the oncologist may have preferred and what the three stories have in common.
As the families of the deceased said in the documentary film "The Wasp’s Nest," a similar scenario can be traced in all three stories. At the clinic, they were given hope of recovery and continued treatment even when the patients’ condition had significantly deteriorated. Despite complications and the patients’ general exhaustion, the oncologist, the families claim, continued aggressive chemotherapy.
The Death of Businessman Adnan Kivan
Maryna Bielotserkovska was his oncologist at the Odrex clinic. She is now, together with surgeon Vitalii Rusakov, an accused party in a criminal case under Part 1 of Article 140 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine — improper performance of professional duties by a medical professional.
According to the investigation, after the operation, the doctors may have failed to prescribe Kivan the necessary antibacterial therapy and may have responded improperly to postoperative complications. According to the conclusions of a forensic medical examination, this could have led to the development of sepsis and the patient’s death. The accused do not admit their guilt.
To hold a medical professional criminally liable, the court must establish whether professional standards were violated and whether there was a direct causal link between specific actions or inaction by the doctor and the patient’s death.
That is why the key stage of this case is the examination of medical records, expert assessments, and other evidence. The circumstances of Kivan’s treatment and the actions of his doctors must now be assessed directly in the court proceedings.
The Death of Sailor Ihor Melai
His widow, Olha Melai, said that her husband was one of Bielotserkovska’s last patients before her dismissal from Odrex in May 2025. According to the woman, she initially viewed the oncologist’s willingness to continue treatment as a chance to save her husband. However, after his death, while examining the medical records and procedures performed, she began to question the appropriateness of the aggressive treatment. She believes that, at one stage, her husband’s condition was extremely serious: for about a month, he barely moved and was unable to eat on his own. Nevertheless, Ihor Melai continued to receive chemotherapy. Olha Melai is convinced that the family may have been kept from learning the patient’s true health condition.
She also draws attention to the circumstances of the surgical intervention after which Ihor Melai ended up in intensive care. The man was offered the insertion of a special port for administering medication. According to Olha, the procedure was presented to the family as minimally invasive and not posing significant risks. However, after the operation, the man was transferred to the intensive care unit.
"I ask, ‘Where is my husband?’ ‘In intensive care.’ The duty anesthesiologist tells me that his condition is critical. He won’t make it until morning,’” Olha Melai says in the documentary.
According to her, during the first day after the intervention, about five liters of fluid were drained from her husband’s chest, and for the following three days he was on a ventilator. Chemotherapy treatment was continued.
After her husband’s death, Olha Melai appealed to the Ministry of Health of Ukraine because of discrepancies in the medical records. According to her, the discharge summaries contain virtually no information about the port-insertion surgery itself or its consequences.
She also claims that before the intervention she signed informed consent for surgery under local anesthesia, whereas the copy of the document later provided by the clinic to the court indicated intravenous anesthesia. According to the widow, the description of the nature of the operation itself also differs: the intervention that had been planned in advance was allegedly subsequently recorded in the clinic’s documents as an emergency procedure.
In her complaint, she asks for a clinical and expert assessment of her husband's treatment, verification of the clinic's compliance with licensing requirements, and an examination of the medical documentation and records in the electronic healthcare system eHealth.
A criminal proceeding has also been opened following a complaint by Olha Melai. It concerns, among other things, the circumstances of the operation and medical procedures performed on her husband. In total, the family spent about $50,000 on his treatment.
The death of Khrystyna Totkailo's father
In August 2024, Khrystyna Totkailo's father was diagnosed with cancer. Initially, the family sought help at Kyiv's Feofaniia Hospital. As Khrystyna recounts, after a medical consultation, doctors decided that aggressive chemotherapy could be too dangerous given her father's condition. Surgeon Ihor Bielotserkovskyi attended the consultation. He suggested that the family contact the Odesa clinic Odrex, where his wife, oncologist Maryna Bielotserkovska, worked.
At Odrex, the patient was prescribed a five-day course of chemotherapy. Khrystyna recalls that the family was promised that her father's larynx and voice would be preserved. A feeding gastrostomy was also placed.
According to Khrystyna, she repeatedly asked the medical staff to examine the gastrostomy and change the dressings, but in her view, proper care was not provided. Before discharge, it was discovered that an opening had formed around the gastrostomy site, through which stomach contents were leaking.
After the family returned to Kyiv, the man's condition deteriorated sharply. Khrystyna says that her father's kidneys began to fail and lesions appeared in his oral cavity. When she informed his treating oncologist, Maryna Bielotserkovska, about his deteriorating condition, she was told only that the doctor had a day off.
In addition, Khrystyna points to discrepancies between the records in the medical documentation and the procedures that were actually performed on her father. The total cost of treatment at Odrex exceeded UAH 250,000.
Conclusions
One cannot automatically equate the death of a seriously ill cancer patient with a medical error. Nor can one draw conclusions about a medical professional's responsibility solely from relatives' accounts. However, the same name—the oncologist Maryna Bielotserkovska—recurs in three different stories.
And the families keep asking the same questions: how justified were the decisions regarding aggressive treatment, did the patients and their relatives receive complete information about the risks, what was the response to the sharp deterioration in their condition, and was the medical documentation falsified? At least in one of these cases, the court is already seeking answers to such questions.