The widow of an Odrex patient filed a complaint with the Ministry of Health — the clinic should be investigated over possible falsification of medical documents
Kyiv • UNN
Olha Melai, the widow of a patient who died at the Odrex clinic, filed a complaint with the Ministry of Health asking it to conduct a clinical and expert assessment of her husband's treatment, verify compliance with licensing conditions, the medical documentation, and the entry in the eHealth system.
Olha Melai, the widow of Ihor Melai, a patient at the private Odrex clinic, has appealed to Ukraine’s Ministry of Health with a complaint alleging serious violations during her husband’s treatment. In the appeal, she asks the Ministry of Health to conduct a comprehensive review of the medical facility’s actions, assess the quality of the care provided, investigate possible changes to the medical documentation and electronic eHealth records, and provide an independent clinical expert assessment of the treatment, reports UNN.
According to Olha Melai, her husband was treated at the clinic for almost eight months—from February to September 2025. In her complaint to the Ministry of Health, she writes that during the first four months, doctors concealed from the family the actual prognosis of the disease—stage IV diffuse large B-cell lymphoma. In her view, this deprived her husband and the family of the opportunity to make informed decisions about his treatment.
In a separate section of the appeal, Melai describes the "unjustified" prescription of an expensive course of immunochemotherapy for her husband. She informs the Ministry of Health that after completing four courses of immunochemotherapy, the clinic unilaterally discontinued her husband’s treatment, although eight courses had initially been planned. The complaint states that these circumstances became the basis for opening a separate criminal proceeding under Article 190 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine—fraud committed under martial law or a state of emergency that caused significant harm to the victim.
Olha Melai
In addition to allegations of possible falsification of medical documents, concealment of information about the patient’s actual state of health, and discontinuation of treatment, Olha Melai also draws the Ministry of Health’s attention to an operation her husband underwent on April 26, 2025.
It was after this operation, Olha Melai says, that her husband was admitted to the intensive care unit, where he remained on mechanical ventilation for three days. The widow notes that the medical documentation the clinic submitted to the court differs substantially from the documents the family received during the treatment. The Ministry of Health can compare these documents.
Olha Melai separately draws the Ministry of Health’s attention to the fact that before the operation, she signed informed consent for the surgical procedure to be performed under local anesthesia. However, the copy of this document that the clinic later provided to the court already stated that intravenous anesthesia had been used. In the widow’s view, this indicates that the document was amended after it had been signed.
The description of the operation itself was also changed. According to Olha Melai, the placement of a pleural port was planned, but the clinic’s documents call the operation "urgent." There are also discrepancies in the information concerning the patient’s postoperative period. In particular, the clinic told the court that there had been no complications, while Ihor Melai spent three days on mechanical ventilation.
Pleural port system
Olha Melai notes that in the electronic healthcare system eHealth, any changes to medical records must leave an audit trail. That is why she asks the Ministry of Health to examine the history of changes made to the electronic medical records, determine whether they were edited after their initial entry, identify who made those changes, and establish whether the electronic records correspond to the paper documentation.
We would like to remind you
Following a statement by Olha Melai, criminal proceedings No. 42025163030000200 were opened concerning what she believes was an operation imposed on her husband by Odrex doctors and the performance of unnecessary pleural punctures. According to the widow, the total cost of treatment amounted to approximately USD 50,000. The proceedings are also being investigated under Part 3 of Article 190 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine — fraud committed under martial law or a state of emergency, causing significant harm to the victim.