Forgery of medical documents at Odrex: the patient’s widow asks to be admitted to a meeting of the commission of the Odesa Regional State Administration’s Health Department
Kyiv • UNN
Olha Melai asks to be admitted to a meeting of the clinical expert commission of the Odesa Regional State Administration, which will review the treatment of her deceased husband at Odrex. The widow wants to personally hand over to the commission members the documents retained by the family and which, according to her claim, differ from the medical records that the clinic later submitted to the court.
Olha Melai, the widow of Ihor Melai, who died after treatment at the private Odrex clinic, wants to be personally present at a meeting of the clinical expert commission of the Odesa Regional State Administration. She intends to hand over to the commission documents received by the family during the treatment, UNN writes.
After the Ministry of Health instructed the Odesa Regional State Administration’s Department of Health to conduct a clinical expert assessment of Ihor Melai’s treatment at Odrex, his widow contacted the authority with a request to invite her to the commission’s meeting.
In the photo: Olha and Ihor Melai. Source: Olha Melai’s Facebook page
This is essential for the complainant, Olha Melai told UNN journalists. One of the key complaints in her appeal to the Ministry of Health concerns possible changes to her husband’s medical records.
Ihor Melai was treated at Odrex for almost eight months—from February to September 2025. In her complaint, the widow asks that the entire treatment period be reviewed, including the prescription of immunochemotherapy, medical interventions performed, record-keeping, and entries in the electronic healthcare system.
According to Melai, her husband was initially scheduled to undergo eight courses of immunochemotherapy, but after the fourth course, the treatment was stopped. She separately asks for the circumstances of the surgery to insert a pleural port to be assessed, after which Ihor Melai was admitted to the intensive care unit and spent three days on mechanical ventilation.
The most significant discrepancies in the documents arose around this surgery. Melai says that before the operation she signed informed consent indicating local anesthesia. At the same time, a copy of this document that the clinic later provided to the court referred to intravenous anesthesia. Likewise, according to her, insertion of the pleural port was planned, whereas the clinic’s documents described the operation as urgent. There are also questions about the description of the postoperative period: the records state that it passed without complications, although after the surgery the patient spent three days in intensive care on a ventilator.
In addition, Melai claims that she retained the original discharge summaries, test results, and prescription sheets, which differ from the medical records later submitted by the clinic to the court. The widow wants to personally hand these materials to the members of the clinical expert commission so that they can compare the different versions of the documents. Separately, in her complaint to the Ministry of Health, Melai asks that the electronic records in eHealth be reviewed and that it be determined whether they were edited.
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The law allows the complainant to attend the meeting
The law expressly allows Olha Melai to attend the commission’s meeting and submit her materials. Thus, Clause 6 of Section II of the Regulation on the Clinical Expert Commission, approved by Ministry of Health Order No. 69, provides that the complainant or their representative may attend the meeting on their own initiative. Article 18 of the Law of Ukraine "On Citizens’ Appeals" gives the complainant the right to present their arguments personally, participate in the review, and submit additional materials.
UNN contacted the Odesa Regional State Administration’s Department of Health and its director, Oksana Rokunets-Sorochan, to find out when the commission’s meeting would take place and whether the Department would invite Olha Melai to it. At the time of publication, the editorial team was awaiting a response.
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