The Cabinet of Ministers has expanded the list of medical products that are mandatory for purchase through the electronic catalog Prozorro Market.
According to the state enterprise “Medical Procurement of Ukraine” (MPU), thus, more than 400 categories of medicines and 92 categories of medical devices will be mandatory for purchase through the electronic catalog.
The relevant changes, enshrined in the government resolution No. 34 regarding medical devices, have already entered into force, while regarding medicines the innovations will be applied from March 1, 2024.
In 2023, more than 1600 customers conducted 13 thousand transactions using Prozorro Market to purchase medicines and medical devices.
The total value of medical goods purchased through electronic catalogs in 2022 amounted to $28 million, in 2023 – $ 2.5 billion.
Prozorro Market electronic catalog works on the principle of the market and is free for customers. With its help, customers can quickly, conveniently and favorably buy products. The medical part of the catalog is administered by specialists from the Ministry of Health.
CABINET OF MINISTERS, Medical Procurement of Ukraine, Prozorro Market
The meeting of shareholders of the insurance company Avangard (Kiev) has decided to increase the authorized capital 4 times, up to UAH 48 mln by conducting an issue for the amount of UAH 36 mln, as reported in the official information of the insurer, placed in the information base of the National Commission on Securities and Stock Market (NCSSM).
It is noted that in the course of the closed issue it is planned to place 36 thousand shares with nominal value of UAH 1 th.
IC “Avangard” was registered in November 2004. It specializes on risk insurance.
The shareholders of the company are AVT-Buti LLC (Kiev) 47,51% and six individuals with stakes from 9,5% to 9,8%
Authorized capital – UAH 12 mln.
State-owned PrivatBank ended 2023 with UAH 37.77 billion in net profit, which is UAH 7.57 billion, or 25%, higher than the financial result of 2022, the financial institution said in a press release on Wednesday.
Pre-tax profit increased 2.1 times, or by UAH 38.09 billion, to UAH 72.77 billion.
According to the release, PrivatBank’s assets last year, after growing by 34.9% in 2022, increased by another 26.6% to UAH 685.1 billion, ensuring its leadership in this indicator in the market.
In 2023, the bank’s net interest income increased by UAH 19.7 billion, or 49.4%, to UAH 59.6 billion, of which UAH 3 billion was due to the favorable interest rate policy of the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) in 2023,
At the same time, net fee and commission income increased by 20% to UAH 24.4 billion.
“In the context of business growth, operating expenses grew by only 8%, remaining under close management control,” the release said.
According to the state-owned bank, the net portfolio of loans to households in 2023 increased by 39% to more than UAH 60 billion, while the volume of loans to businesses increased by 23% to more than UAH 30 billion.
PrivatBank notes a gradual improvement in the quality of the loan portfolio, which leads to significant savings in provisioning costs. In particular, according to the bank, expenses under this item in 2023 decreased by UAH 11.8 billion compared to 2022.
There has also been an increase in deposits in the state bank of both individuals and enterprises – the volume of deposits increased by 18%, or UAH 85 billion, compared to the level of 2022. According to the state-owned bank, deposits and balances on correspondent accounts of clients reached UAH 550 billion in 2023. According to the submitted materials, Privat has 18.35 million active individual clients and 875 thousand business clients.
It is noted that Privat paid UAH 26.8 billion in income tax to the state budget (including UAH 8.2 billion in prepayments in 2021-2022, together with dividends), while in 2021-2022 the financial institution paid UAH 8.5 billion.
“The majority of the bank’s net profit will be used to pay dividends, i.e. also to the state budget, according to the decision of the shareholder represented by the Ministry of Finance,” the statement emphasizes.
Ukrainian Prime Minister Denis Shmygal and Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fitzo have agreed to hold a business forum in the first half of 2024.
“They emphasized the importance of strengthening relations between enterprises and promoting the involvement of Slovak companies in the efforts to rebuild Ukraine. Accordingly, they agreed to convene a business forum in the first half of 2024 with the participation of representatives of the state and regions, business associations and relevant state institutions,” reads a joint statement following the premiers’ meeting in Uzhgorod on Wednesday.
The sides also agreed to hold a meeting of the Ukrainian-Slovak mixed commission on economic, industrial, scientific and technical cooperation and the intergovernmental Ukrainian-Slovak commission on cross-border cooperation as soon as possible.
In 2023, the ports of the Danube Cluster almost doubled their cargo turnover to 32 million tons.
As the Ukrainian Sea Ports Authority (USPA) reported on Facebook on Wednesday, 14,031 thousand vessels were received and dispatched during this period,
Izmail port received/dispatched 9,324 thousand vessels, handling 20.26 million tons of cargo. The port of Reni handled 3,858 thousand vessels and 10.07 million tons of cargo, and the port of Ust-Dunaisk handled 849 vessels and 1.68 million tons of cargo.
Last year, the volume of grain transshipment in the ports of the Danube cluster almost doubled to 20 million tons (10.3 million tons in 2022). Also, the volume of transshipment of liquid bulk cargo increased significantly – 5.3 million tons (2.3 million tons), ferrous metals – 1.7 million tons (0.8 million tons), construction materials – 0.5 million tons (0.3 million tons), containers – 67,667 thousand TEU (9,321 thousand TEU). The volume of ore transshipment slightly decreased to 1.9 million tons (2.1 million tons).
Earlier it was reported that the cargo turnover of the seaports of the Danube region in January-November 2023 reached 29.4 million tons, which is more than twice the figure for the same period in 2022 (14.5 million tons).
The volume of transshipment in the ports of the Danube cluster in 2022 amounted to 16.49 million tons: 8.89 million tons at the port of Izmail, 6.82 million tons at the port of Reni and 0.785 thousand tons at the port of Ust-Dunaisk.
In 2023, Ukrainian clinics resumed their work taking into account the situation and challenges of wartime and opened new areas, in particular, those that take into account the needs for treatment of war injuries, rehabilitation and reconstruction.
This was announced by the heads of leading private clinics in Ukraine during a roundtable discussion at Interfax-Ukraine on Tuesday.
“In 2023, we regained our position in the market share for our usual services – childbirth and pregnancy. There, we have already successfully transformed into a multidisciplinary medical center, added new services and were able to develop in several new areas, such as obesity treatment, mammary and phlebology surgery, and pediatrics,” said Vadym Zukin, COO and co-owner of Leleka Multidisciplinary Medical Center.
At the same time, he called the clinic’s confirmation of Joint Commission International (JCI) international accreditation for 2024 the biggest achievement in 2023.
“In 2024, we plan to develop the services we already have in new areas, as well as launch several services unique to Ukraine, which we will be able to announce at the end of the year,” Zukin said, adding, “We can talk about our plans only thanks to our Armed Forces, our defenders who are currently protecting us at the front.”
In turn, Oleksandr Linchevsky, Chief Medical Officer of the Dobrobut medical network (Kyiv), reminded of the opening of a new multidisciplinary hospital on Bazhana Avenue in Kyiv with an area of more than 9,000 square meters in 2023. Last year, the Dobrobut Ophthalmology Clinic also started its work in the new hospital.
“This opening was planned from the very beginning, before the full-scale invasion, we planned to open it a year earlier. But even during the war, we were able to open this new hospital with new facilities, new services, new operating rooms. And, of course, it looks incredible,” he said.
Linchevsky also said that in 2023 Dobrobut opened a rehabilitation department in the medical center on Simi Idzykovskoho Street in the capital and plans to open similar departments in its outpatient departments.
In addition, Dobrobut launched a new Center for Somnology and a Center for Onco-Dermatology, which is headed by Professor Maria Kukushkina. Last year, the chain also opened another dental clinic, bringing the total number of Dobrobut dentists in Kyiv to three.
“We like the result of 2023, although we might have wanted to have some of it in 2022,” he said.
Commenting on Dobrobut’s development plans for 2024, Mr. Linchevsky said: “If we say we have nothing to improve, we will be deceiving ourselves.”
“Every comment, every criticism from patients is already a self-sufficient development plan. We just decide to implement this plan immediately or a little later. The war is full of uncertainties, so we will focus on solving operational issues and laying the foundations to realize our hopes and dreams as soon as possible. We have a lot to do every day,” he stated.
For his part, Vitaliy Girin, co-owner of the ADONIS Medical Group, said that in 2023, the group’s clinics provided medical care to more than 250 thousand people. In addition, more than 300 military personnel received rehabilitation assistance.
Mr. Girin also said that last year ADONIS opened two outpatient rehabilitation centers and a rehabilitation center in the left-bank part of Kyiv.
“Despite the blackouts and all the problems we have faced, we see that the number of our patients is gradually increasing,” he said.
At the same time, Girin noted that the pre-war years were associated with the COVID-19 pandemic, so comparing the flow of patients with the pre-war period would not be correct. “The numbers are not very correct, but we have about 50% fewer patients,” he said.
“The most important achievement is that we were able to keep the team we have,” emphasized Girin.
Commenting on plans for 2024, he said that the most important task for ADONIS is to optimize business processes.
“We will implement new quality standards and introduce the latest technologies. We also want to focus on developing a culture of regular checkups, because health is in the hands of people themselves. They have already realized this, and no one is responsible for it but them,” he said.
For his part, Rostyslav Valikhnovskyi, director and founder of the Dr. Valikhnovskyi Clinic medical center, said that the clinic specializes in scheduled and urgent surgeries. In 2023, it expanded and developed a wide range of services for Ukrainian and foreign patients, and also actively provides the necessary surgical care to military personnel.
“We opened a clinic in Ivano-Frankivsk. It is a full-fledged building according to modern standards, even newer than the one in Kyiv. This clinic helps us a lot during the war to provide services to those patients who have left for western Ukraine but need highly specialized surgical services,” he said.
In addition, Valikhnovsky announced the construction of a second building in Kyiv with an area of about 2,500 square meters. At the same time, changes were made to this project to expand the area of bomb shelters and increase the bed capacity by 35 beds.
In addition, the Dr. Valikhnovsky Clinic has launched the Valikhnovsky Academy educational project, in which 150 surgeons from different countries with many years of practice experience and their own electronic patient record, which stores medical data in English, are mentored by mentors. This makes it possible to transfer this data to any medical center in the world if necessary.
Commenting on plans for 2024, Valikhnovsky emphasized his intention to build another clinic in Kyiv and western Ukraine.
“Currently, we are looking for a building in the capital of 5-6 thousand square meters, which we can reconstruct, or a land plot for construction. The second part is a clinic in the western region of the country,” he said.
For her part, Oleksandra Zborovska, a senior researcher at the Filatov Institute of Eye Diseases and Tissue Therapy of the National Academy of Medical Sciences of Ukraine (Odesa), said that the clinic did not stop working in 2023. She called the main achievements the retention of the scientific and staff, the continuation of medical services and research.
According to Zborovska, the number of patients has fully returned to the pre-war level, but there are more serious patients in their structure. “The number of severe cases is increasing,” she stated.
Zborovska also said that the clinic has treated about 1,500 victims of war trauma, both military and civilians.
She also recalled that the institute had opened a new seven-story building with the most modern ophthalmic equipment.
In addition, the institute’s staff, who treat eye injuries, have spoken at major international conferences to present their unique experience.
“The breakthrough that we were able to realize based on our experience in creating new projects not only in practical but also in scientific terms is very important for us,” she said.
ADONIS, DOBROBUT, FILATOV INSTITUTE, Linchevsky, ZBOROVSKA, ГИРИН, Зукін, Лелека
