The state-owned enterprise “Medical Procurements of Ukraine” (MPU) purchased medical supplies worth nearly 8.2 billion hryvnias over the first eight months of 2026, which accounts for 83% of the medical supplies designated for procurement this year.
As reported by MZU in a press release, as of early September, the largest portion of funds was allocated to the procurement of drugs and medical devices for the treatment and care of patients, specifically: medications for children and adults with cancer—184 items totaling 2 billion hryvnias; innovative medicines procured through managed access agreements (MAA)—32 items totaling 1.9 billion hryvnias, medications and medical devices for the treatment of cardiovascular diseases—105 items totaling 1.1 billion UAH; medical devices to support blood donation—122 items totaling 817.9 million UAH; and medications for children and adults with hemophilia—29 items totaling 541.7 million UAH.
In total, in 2026, the Ministry of Health is set to procure 813 items, including those purchased with funds from donors via the UNITED24 fundraising platform. Over the past 8 months, the Ministry of Health has delivered 760 items of medicines and medical devices to the regions, purchased with funds from this year’s and last year’s budgets.
In addition, the Ministry of Health reports that from January through August, hospitals purchased nearly 21.1 billion UAH worth of medical supplies through the Prozorro Market electronic catalog—the medical section of which has been administered by the Ministry since 2019—which is 30.2% more than during the same period in 2025.
The average savings over the first eight months of 2026 for purchases made through Prozorro Market amounted to 12.77% of the expected procurement cost, and in total, buyers saved 3.1 billion UAH.
During January–August 2026, 2,633 contracting entities purchased medical supplies through Prozorro Market, and 1,530 qualified suppliers submitted their offers in the catalog.
HOSPITAL, MEDICINE, Ministry of Health, PROCUREMENT, Prozorro Market
Children with mental disorders who require inpatient care in Ukraine should be treated in regional or city children’s hospitals, rather than in general psychiatric facilities, said Yevhen Gonchar, Ukraine’s Deputy Minister of Health, in an exclusive interview with the Interfax-Ukraine news agency.
According to him, the legislation was amended after cases were uncovered in which children from residential care facilities were referred to psychiatric hospitals—in particular, under the guise of treatment or rehabilitation, or in fact to influence their behavior.
Such cases were documented in reports by the Verkhovna Rada Commissioner for Human Rights and law enforcement agencies.
Gonchar emphasized that a psychiatric hospital should not be used as a tool for correcting a child’s behavior.
Adult patients with dementia who have been in psychiatric facilities for a long time, primarily for social rather than medical reasons, remain a separate issue.
Stable patients with dementia who do not require treatment for acute episodes, according to the deputy minister, should receive social care—specifically in supported living facilities or other specialized institutions—rather than permanently occupying beds in psychiatric hospitals.
The number of hospitalizations in Ukrainian medical facilities rose from 5.5 million cases in 2021 to 8.3 million in 2025, said Yevhen Gonchar, Ukraine’s Deputy Minister of Health, in an exclusive interview with Interfax-Ukraine.
According to him, the patient demographic has also changed: the proportion of hospitalized men aged 18–65 rose by 12 percentage points during this period.
At the same time, the increase in the number of hospitalizations came to a halt in 2025, and in the first half of 2026, the number had already decreased compared to the same period the previous year.
Gonchar emphasized that the new hospitalization criteria approved by the Ministry of Health do not trigger this decline but rather reinforce a trend that had already taken shape within the healthcare system.
However, comparing indicators over a long period requires caution. Between 2020 and 2022, Ukrainian healthcare facilities transitioned from paper-based to electronic record-keeping, so the quality of medical case coding gradually improved. According to the deputy minister, data from the electronic healthcare system has been stable enough for year-over-year comparisons since 2023.
The introduction of uniform hospitalization criteria in Ukraine does not mean an automatic reduction in the hospital network; however, complex medical procedures will increasingly be concentrated in facilities capable of ensuring the necessary level of safety, said Yevhen Honchar, Ukraine’s Deputy Minister of Health, in an exclusive interview with Interfax-Ukraine.
According to him, in most communities where hospitals currently operate, medical care facilities should remain. The key issue is the range of services that a specific facility is capable of providing safely.
A small hospital does not necessarily need to perform surgical procedures or deliver babies if it lacks a sufficient number of specialists and the necessary infrastructure.
In particular, safe round-the-clock monitoring of surgical patients requires several anesthesiologists, whereas small facilities sometimes have only one surgeon and one anesthesiologist on staff.
At the same time, basic services—family medicine, consultations with a cardiologist, an obstetrician-gynecologist, and other specialists—must remain as geographically accessible as possible.
Thus, the development of the hospital network will proceed simultaneously in two directions: the concentration of specialized care and the preservation of a broad network of basic medical services.
HOSPITAL, HOSPITALIZATION, MEDICINE, Ministry of Health, REFORM
Ukrainian clinics have signed more than 100 memorandums of understanding as part of the international medical partnership program launched under the patronage of Ukraine’s First Lady Olena Zelenska.
According to the Ministry of Health, 26 of these memorandums were signed with medical institutions in France and are being implemented with the support of Expertise France, the French interministerial agency for international cooperation and development.
For example, as part of the partnership, the Chernihiv Regional Children’s Hospital is collaborating with the University Hospital of Lille, and the Chernihiv Regional Psychoneurological Hospital is collaborating with the University Hospital of Nîmes.
The Ministry of Health notes that in June 2024, the governments of Ukraine and France signed an intergovernmental grant agreement totaling 200 million euros, part of which is allocated to the healthcare sector and critical infrastructure: seven agreements in the healthcare sector have been signed, totaling 51 million euros. In addition, in 2024, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine ratified framework agreements between Ukraine and France on cooperation in the reconstruction and modernization of hospitals and in oncology diagnostics.
FRANCE, international partnership, MEDICINE, Ministry of Health
Odrex Medical Center (Dom Meditsiny LLC, Odessa) has undergone an inspection for compliance with licensing conditions, and the Ministry of Health has confirmed its compliance, according to the clinic’s CEO Tigran Arutyunyan.
“In January 2026, a commission from the Ukrainian Ministry of Health conducted an unscheduled inspection of Odrex Medical Center’s compliance with licensing conditions. Based on the results of the inspection, the Ministry of Health confirmed that Odrex Medical Center fully complies with licensing conditions, operates within the law, and has no violations,” he wrote on his Facebook page.
Arutyunyan specified that the inspection lasted three days and covered key areas of the hospital’s activities.
He noted that “Odrex continues to provide medical care as planned.”
As reported, two doctors from the Odrex clinic were accused of causing the death of its 62-year-old patient, businessman Adnan Kivan, who was undergoing treatment for cancer at the Odrex medical center from May to October 2024. He died on October 27, 2024.
During the investigation on October 24, 2025, investigators handed over suspicions to the head of surgical department No. 2, surgeon-oncologist Vitaly Rusakov, and clinical oncologist and chemotherapist Marina Bilotserkovskaya.
The clinic officially expressed its willingness to cooperate with the investigation and called on the media to avoid unproven accusations against its doctors in the patient’s death and to wait for the official conclusions of the investigation. At the same time, the clinic believes that this investigation is of a commissioned nature.
For its part, the Ministry of Health launched an unscheduled inspection of the Odrex clinic after this incident.
