You're reading: Clinic chief asks lawmakers, journalists to leave clinic

Chief of Kharkiv-based Central Clinical Hospital No. 5 Mykhailo Afanasyev has asked journalists and people's deputies to leave the territory of the clinic.

“Strangers must not stay here after 2000 for patients’ comfort,” Afansyev said.

He recalled that apart from former Ukrainian Premier Yulia Tymoshenko’s ward an intensive care unit is located on the ninth floor.

“We have five patients in grave condition there now – two patients after surgery and three people that had stroke,” he said.

Afanasyev stressed that MPs that are staying with Tymoshenko in the room should leave the clinic. According to an Interfax-Ukraine reporter, Afanasyev has not entered the room.

Asked what he would do in case the MPs and journalists refuse to leave the hospital, Afanasyev said: “This is not a medical question.”

At the same time, Batkivschyna parliamentary faction MP Arsen Avakov said that he would not leave the hospital and he as a people’s deputy has a right to stay there.

“I am waiting for the guard commander. He has not been able to talk to me for half an hour,” Avakov said.

According to the reporter, despite the chief’s demand the people’s deputies and journalists keep staying in the building of the clinic.