The National Cancer Institute has been left in the lurch yet another year.
The Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine decided to cancel Hr 105 million ($3.7 million) in funding to create a molecular genetic cancer diagnostic laboratory for the institute. That money will instead go toward road repairs and other non-medical programs.
The institute has been waiting for the upgrade since 2017, when the plan was introduced. Any money the government sets aside must be used before the end of the year. So far, state enterprises in charge of project tenders failed to finish up by deadline. The institute has no authority over the project.
This year, the project came closer than ever before to being finalized. But the cabinet decided to take away the allocated funds because the end of the year is looming. It’s very likely that the project will be pushed into next year, when the money will be set aside again.
“We are outraged because this is the third year in a row where we have to apply,” said Oleksandr Yatsyna, the head of the institute. “Unfortunately, they take it away at the end of the year because we supposedly fail to utilize it.”
Government enterprise Ukrmedproektbud, which is in charge of tendering for the project, declined to comment.
Ukrmedproektbud set up two tenders this year, but they were not successful. By law, at least two companies must bid on a tender for it to be recognized. Yatsyna said that a second company failed to make a bid.
According to open bidding platform, Prozorro, the company Riola-Modul Ltd. bid on the project. Another company, Gelon Group, also bid but was disqualified.
Without the laboratory upgrade, Yatsyna said that the institute cannot conduct cell transplants.
“Ukraine spends a billion hryvnias every year to treat adults and children abroad,” he said. “Our institute could have covered a big part of that demand.”
The Ministry of Economic Development stated that it will ensure that the project will be fully implemented in 2021.
According to the Cabinet’s announcement, Hr 62 million ($2.2 million) of the cancer funding will instead be spent on improving public roads in the Lviv region.
Hr 20 million (over $705,000) more will go to the Ministry of Education to restore Lviv National University and Hr 10 million (over $352,000) will go to the Ministry of Energy to expand the Novokostyantinivska mine in Kirovohrad Oblast.
The move is just one more example of the Cabinet chipping away at cancer funding, according to the NGO Athena: Women Against Cancer.
“Oncology patients are the most defenseless segment of the population,” said Victoria Romaniuk, the co-founder of Athena. “Taking money away from oncology is very bad, unacceptable.”
“Our indignation is exacerbated by the fact that the Ministry of Health did not take a stand before the Cabinet that this money needs to remain in the medical sphere,” wrote the Tabletochki foundation. “Either it failed or it didn’t try – we don’t know. But we do know that there is a need for these funds.”
As an example, a children’s oncology program regularly suffers cuts of Hr 300 – 400 million at the expense of capital repairs and equipment purchase, the foundation wrote. Olya Kudinenko, the founder of Tabletochki wrote that the National Children’s Specialized Hospital Okhmadyt’s only remaining computerized tomography equipment has been broken for months.
“The heads of the hospital aren’t screaming about this and the health ministry, which answers for the hospital, says there’s no money for repairs,” she wrote. “But when it comes to roads, here, take some so that the hearses don’t bounce around on the potholes.”
This isn’t the first time that the government spent money that had been set aside for health care on roads. President Volodymyr Zelensky’s government has been tearing chunks from the Hr 66 billion ($2.3 billion) COVID-19 fund, with over half of it being assigned to road construction.
Roads were one of Zelensky’s campaign promises. But his reallocation has sparked controversy because the country is facing the COVID-19 pandemic with relatively limited medical capabilities.
Other agencies have also picked apart the fund. For example, the energy ministry asked for Hr 140 million ($4.9 million) for its Kirovohrad uranium mine. The money had been fully divided between the agencies even before the growing wave of COVID-19 swept the country this fall.
Additionally, the government has also taken money from the cancer treatment procurement fund and allocated it to flu and COVID-19, while holding the remaining money in reserve.
International organizations are in charge of buying Ukraine’s basic cancer drugs. Last year, Crown Agents, UNICEF and UNDP saved $26 million from their $63 million oncology procurement budget.
That $26 million could have fully paid for more specialized treatments, which don’t fall under general procurement. Cancer patients who need these treatments usually have to pay for them out of pocket.
The health ministry has spent part of that amount on flu vaccines. About $23 million remains but it is not being spent on cancer treatments.
Close to 80,000 people died of cancer in Ukraine in 2019.
