The Fight Against the ‘Former People’ of the Yanukovych Regime
Posted on Feb 26, 2015
By Halyna Mokrushyna, Counterpunch
This piece first appeared at CounterPunch.
Halyna Mokrushyna is currently enrolled in the PhD program in Sociology at the University of Ottawa and a part-time professor. She holds a doctorate in linguistics and MA degree in communication. Her doctoral project deals with the memory of Stalinist purges in Ukraine. In the summer of 2013 she travelled to Lviv, Kyiv, Kharkiv and Donetsk to conduct field research.
As my recent article on the attempts to dislodge the head of the National Cancer Institute of Ukraine in Kyiv was about to be published in Counterpunch, a colleague drew my attention to an article on the same subject which was published almost simultaneously in the The Guardian. I began to write a commentary on the biased and prejudiced style of the Guardian article. But the events of February 16 have changed my article’s focus.
Professor Ihor Shchepotin was given a notice of dismissal on February 16 right in the surgery room as he was preparing to operate on a patient laying on the operating table under anesthetic. A group of people headed by a Dr. Semivolos from the Institute burst into the room and informed the professor that he was dismissed and should quit the room. He was forced to leave, while the patient remained on the table.
When contacted by UNN News by phone, Prof. Shchepotin confirmedwhat happened to him that day. “My contract as the director of the Institute expired on February 11. However, I still remain the head of the department of abdominal swelling of the Institute,” he said. “That is why I went into the surgery room to do my job – to save people’s lives.
“It was like a stage setting… It’s a pity that those who wanted so much to dismiss me from the directorial position could not care less about people’s lives.”
The story of Prof. Shchepotin’s dismissal started many months ago. Before I begin to unravel it, let me remind you that Professor Igor Shchepotin is a world-renowned surgeon-oncologist and a member of numerous international organizations. He has published 600 scientific papers and 300 articles. On February 11, the International Association of Surgeons, Gastroenterologists and Oncologists (IASGO), of which Mr. Shchepotin is a member, sent a letter to Ukrainian Minister of Health O. Kvitashvili in support of the professor’s work. “Thanks to his efforts, Ukraine has become known in the domain of oncology throughout the world. Ukraine is a member of many international and professional associations… We were honored to have Mr. Shchepotin as a chair of a panel during the last World Congress of the IASGO in Vienna in 2014. Mr. Shchepotin is a prominent and world renowned surgeon-oncologist.”
How is it possible that a doctor with such a reputation was so theatrically pushed out of an operating room of the institute he used to lead and was fired without notice? It all started when a new Ukrainian government, formed as a result of a coup d’état last year, appointed several people from the Euromaidan protest movement to ministerial positions, as a way to recognize ordinary Ukrainians’ contribution to the overthrow of the “criminal” regime of former president Viktor Yanukovych.
Oleh Muisy, a Western Ukrainian and doctor by profession, who was a volunteer for the Euromaidan protests treating and assisting injured people, was appointed Minister of Health after the victory of the Euromaidan. Right from the start, he embarked on a mission to eradicate corruption in the Ministry and in the health care system overall of Ukraine. He fired most of the high-level executives in the Ministry under the pretext that they were appointed by the former regime and were plundering public money. He also blamed his first deputy minister for failing to organize in a timely manner tenders for purchasing drugs. Not surprisingly, his deputy minister was also from the previous ministry. But Muisy’s carreer ambitions hit a wall on October 1, 2014, when Prime Minister Yatseniuk fired him “in relation to an unsatisfactory state of realization of the program of drug purchases”. In response, Musiy called Yatseniuk’s government a “modernized version of Yanukovych’s regime”.
Back at the National Cancer Institute, its director, Prof. Igor Shchepotin, was also seen by Musiy as part of the corrupted bureaucratic apparatus of the ancien régime which had to be cleansed. Musiy had an ally within the Institute – another activist of Euromaidan, Doctor Andrei Semivolos. After the victory of Euromaidan, Semivolos decided to undertake a revolution in the Institute. He found a dozen like-minded persons within the Institute, mostly young professionals, and launched an internal battle for control. In June of 2014, they founded a so-called “independent” trade union which, they claimed, represents the interests of the collective of workers of the Institute. However, the Institute already has a primary trade union organization, with over 900 members. According to the statute of the Institute and the collective agreement with its employees, only this organization can represent the rights and interests of the Institute employees.
This piece first appeared at CounterPunch.
Halyna Mokrushyna is currently enrolled in the PhD program in Sociology at the University of Ottawa and a part-time professor. She holds a doctorate in linguistics and MA degree in communication. Her doctoral project deals with the memory of Stalinist purges in Ukraine. In the summer of 2013 she travelled to Lviv, Kyiv, Kharkiv and Donetsk to conduct field research.
As my recent article on the attempts to dislodge the head of the National Cancer Institute of Ukraine in Kyiv was about to be published in Counterpunch, a colleague drew my attention to an article on the same subject which was published almost simultaneously in the The Guardian. I began to write a commentary on the biased and prejudiced style of the Guardian article. But the events of February 16 have changed my article’s focus.
Professor Ihor Shchepotin was given a notice of dismissal on February 16 right in the surgery room as he was preparing to operate on a patient laying on the operating table under anesthetic. A group of people headed by a Dr. Semivolos from the Institute burst into the room and informed the professor that he was dismissed and should quit the room. He was forced to leave, while the patient remained on the table.
“It was like a stage setting… It’s a pity that those who wanted so much to dismiss me from the directorial position could not care less about people’s lives.”
The story of Prof. Shchepotin’s dismissal started many months ago. Before I begin to unravel it, let me remind you that Professor Igor Shchepotin is a world-renowned surgeon-oncologist and a member of numerous international organizations. He has published 600 scientific papers and 300 articles. On February 11, the International Association of Surgeons, Gastroenterologists and Oncologists (IASGO), of which Mr. Shchepotin is a member, sent a letter to Ukrainian Minister of Health O. Kvitashvili in support of the professor’s work. “Thanks to his efforts, Ukraine has become known in the domain of oncology throughout the world. Ukraine is a member of many international and professional associations… We were honored to have Mr. Shchepotin as a chair of a panel during the last World Congress of the IASGO in Vienna in 2014. Mr. Shchepotin is a prominent and world renowned surgeon-oncologist.”
How is it possible that a doctor with such a reputation was so theatrically pushed out of an operating room of the institute he used to lead and was fired without notice? It all started when a new Ukrainian government, formed as a result of a coup d’état last year, appointed several people from the Euromaidan protest movement to ministerial positions, as a way to recognize ordinary Ukrainians’ contribution to the overthrow of the “criminal” regime of former president Viktor Yanukovych.
Oleh Muisy, a Western Ukrainian and doctor by profession, who was a volunteer for the Euromaidan protests treating and assisting injured people, was appointed Minister of Health after the victory of the Euromaidan. Right from the start, he embarked on a mission to eradicate corruption in the Ministry and in the health care system overall of Ukraine. He fired most of the high-level executives in the Ministry under the pretext that they were appointed by the former regime and were plundering public money. He also blamed his first deputy minister for failing to organize in a timely manner tenders for purchasing drugs. Not surprisingly, his deputy minister was also from the previous ministry. But Muisy’s carreer ambitions hit a wall on October 1, 2014, when Prime Minister Yatseniuk fired him “in relation to an unsatisfactory state of realization of the program of drug purchases”. In response, Musiy called Yatseniuk’s government a “modernized version of Yanukovych’s regime”.
Back at the National Cancer Institute, its director, Prof. Igor Shchepotin, was also seen by Musiy as part of the corrupted bureaucratic apparatus of the ancien régime which had to be cleansed. Musiy had an ally within the Institute – another activist of Euromaidan, Doctor Andrei Semivolos. After the victory of Euromaidan, Semivolos decided to undertake a revolution in the Institute. He found a dozen like-minded persons within the Institute, mostly young professionals, and launched an internal battle for control. In June of 2014, they founded a so-called “independent” trade union which, they claimed, represents the interests of the collective of workers of the Institute. However, the Institute already has a primary trade union organization, with over 900 members. According to the statute of the Institute and the collective agreement with its employees, only this organization can represent the rights and interests of the Institute employees.
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