The leadership of the Berlin-based Charite Clinic has denied taking any payment for the medical treatment of former Prime Minister of Ukraine Yulia Tymoshenko from the Ukrainian side.
According to German magazine Spiegel Online which cites an interview with the board head of Charite Clinic Professor Karl Max Einhaupl, there has been no agreement about the payment for Tymoshenko’s treatment. Neither she, nor the Batkivschyna Party has ever paid for the treatment.
According to him, only travel expenses have been paid for. In addition, according to the magazine, the German doctors’ trip to Kyiv for a meeting with Ukraine’s Prosecutor General Viktor Pshonka was paid for by the Ukrainian government, and another visit was paid for by the German government.
Regarding the cost of Tymoshenko’s treatment, which is EUR 680,000, and the alleged correspondence with the patient’s daughter, Yevhenia Tymoshenko, Einhaupl called this untrue.
On October 11, 2011, Pechersky District Court in Kyiv sentenced Tymoshenko to seven years in prison for abuse of office when signing gas contracts with Russia in 2009. She has been serving her prison term in the Kachanivska penal colony in Kharkiv since the end of December 2011.
The defense team has repeatedly stated that Tymoshenko had health problems even during her stay at Kyiv’s pre-trial detention center, and demanded that she be examined by independent doctors, because Tymoshenko does not trust Ukrainian doctors. On May 9, Tymoshenko was moved from the prison to Central Clinical Hospital No. 5 in Kharkiv. The procedures for the ex-premier’s treatment in hospital have been selected by German doctors from the Charite Clinic.
