Prisoner Oksana Melnyk, who underwent treatment at Ukrzaliznytsia's Central Clinical Hospital No. 5 in Kharkiv along with former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, has described her former neighbor in the ward as an "imaginary patient."
“She pretended to be a patient. This alarmed me… It’s clear that she is an important person, and she wants to draw the attention of the public and promote herself so that everybody rushes around her and pays attention to her,” she told reporters in the Kachanivska penal colony on Wednesday.
She said that Tymoshenko, while coming out of starvation, ate hospital food.
“When she was coming out of starvation, she ate hospital food, and she obliged me to eat this hospital food before consuming it herself. ‘First you, if something suddenly happens, and then me,'” Melnyk said.
She said that during the three months of her stay in the ward with Tymoshenko, the ex-premier treated her like a servant, and she repeatedly violated the doctors’ requirements.
“Over the course of her medical treatment, Tymoshenko used me as a servant. I had to bring anything to her, and help her to her feet when she wanted to pretend in front of foreign delegations and German doctors. At the same time, she could easily get up from bed and take things out of the closet. She ignored the requirements of doctors who gave her recommendations for physical education. She could lift 10-kg weights and doing muscle-strengthening exercises. She could swing a press 50 times. She could raise her legs and bend them at the knees. She could take a few steps. Well, when she forgot, she could walk through the ward,” Melnyk said.
