While the number of criminal proceedings involving the Odesa clinic Odrex is growing, and affected patients are uniting in a protest movement, state regulators, it seems, have chosen a tactic of "deaf defense." The National Health Service of Ukraine ignores journalists' questions about multi-million dollar contracts with the scandalous medical institution, which is involved in cases of fraud, medical negligence, and intentional homicide, UNN reports.
The editorial board of UNN addressed direct questions to the NHSU: how much budget money did the "Odrex" clinic receive through contracts over the past 5 years, and does the service take into account reputational risks when contracting medical institutions? The term provided by law has expired, but the editorial board has not yet received an official response. Questions directly related to patient safety and the use of budget funds have, in fact, remained without a reaction from the state structure. The regulator's silence amid the scandal surrounding the "Odrex Case" may indicate that the agency either has nothing to answer or is trying to buy time to hide inconvenient figures and facts.
Despite public complaints from former patients and families of people who died after treatment at Odrex, despite open calls for the state to intervene and protect Ukrainian patients, the situation is developing paradoxically. The clinic, which is involved in 10 criminal proceedings for fraud, medical negligence, and intentional homicide, became one of the largest private partners of the NHSU in 2025. The medical institution worked under eight packages of the Medical Guarantees Program at once: treatment of strokes, heart attacks, rehabilitation, and primary care. This means large-scale cooperation between the NHSU and Odrex, which involves significant amounts of state funding.
For example, in 2023 alone, the NHSU officially transferred more than UAH 53 million to the Odrex clinic under contracts. At that time, the regulator openly emphasized the scale of cooperation with the Odesa clinic as an achievement.
In total, last year (ed. 2023) "House of Medicine" received 53,132,886 hryvnias from the National Service. The NHSU paid the most funds to the private medical institution for primary care services. Family doctors working at Odrex concluded declarations with about 49 thousand residents of the Odesa region
"Their people": the close relationship between Lyashko and Arutyunyan
Why is the regulator now turning a blind eye to patient deaths and lawsuits against the clinic? Perhaps the answer lies in personal relationships of the leadership.
As reported by UNN earlier, the general director of "Odrex" Tigran Arutyunyan and the Minister of Health Viktor Lyashko have known each other personally for many years. In addition, Arutyunyan is officially a member of the Ministry of Health's working group on the development of private medicine, which is headed by the minister himself.
In a situation where a clinic involved in criminal proceedings remains one of the largest partners of a state customer, such connections inevitably raise questions about a possible conflict of interest.
If state bodies indeed covered "their" partners, the Medical Guarantees Program could turn from a tool to help patients into a tool for enriching individuals at the cost of Ukrainian lives.
We continue to await an official response from the NHSU and the Ministry of Health regarding cooperation with the scandalous Odrex clinic. However, for now, the situation looks like the NHSU is not in a hurry to explain the scale of funding and the criteria by which a clinic with ten criminal proceedings continues to receive state funds. Ignoring the request in a situation of obvious public resonance may indicate not a technical delay, but an unwillingness to answer uncomfortable questions. Because if a decision is transparent and justified, it is usually not hidden.