As it became known to RT, the SC of the city of Obninsk, Kaluga Region, is investigating a criminal case against Pavel Sviridov, the head of the Prostate Cancer Brachytherapy Center of Clinical Hospital No. 8. The doctor is suspected of receiving bribes from patients operated on by him in 2014 and 2016. According to the UK, Sviridov demanded money from patients for “organizing treatment and preparing documents for the allocation of treatment quotas - financing the operation from the state budget.
As follows from the materials of the criminal case, Sviridov, being the head of the specialized department of prostate cancer of KB No. 8, as well as a member of the selection committee for the provision of high-tech medical care, demanded money from patients “for organizing treatment, hospitalization in the department headed by him, preparing documents for allocation of quotas. "
The case lists 13 identical episodes when Sviridov’s patients gave him bribes for services. It is noteworthy that the amounts that patients transferred to Sviridov allegedly for the provision of services to them vary greatly. So, for example, patient V.V. Rogozhin transferred 220 thousand rubles to the oncologist, while V. S. Sergeev - only 20 thousand.
At the same time, patients could be interviewed by investigators back in 2016. Then the UK charged Sviridov with taking bribes from 24 people. The verdict of the Obninsk district court of the Kaluga region was found guilty and sentenced to four years probation and a fine of 5 million rubles. However, some of the episodes for some reason were not included in the first criminal case.
Sviridov’s lawyer Eduard Burushko in an interview with RT notes that the initiation of a new case and the subsequent election of a measure of restraint in the form of recognizance not to leave against Sviridov are illegal.
“Without exception, the facts of Sviridov’s relationship with patients were already the subject of an investigation in a criminal case instituted in December 2016 on similar facts,” Burushko explains. - Then law enforcement officers met with all patients and carried out procedural actions with them. A new criminal case was opened when the trial was in progress in the first case. ”
According to him, then the case was opened not against Sviridov, but "upon" the commission of criminal acts.
“This contradicts the essence of the law, since the disposition of Art. 290 of the Criminal Code determines the status of an official and the circumstances of receiving a bribe. A similar criminal case could only be instituted against a specific official, taking into account his specific official duties. In addition, this procedural trick allowed investigating the case for more than six months, depriving Sviridov of the right to participate in the process, which violated his right to defense. ”
Sviridov’s defender also claims that a new criminal case was opened on December 27, 2018, “which could be due to the desire of law enforcement officers to improve performance in the outgoing calendar year.”
“All the episodes should have been united in one thing, but some of them, as I suppose, were simply postponed until later. As a result, my client can expect a new trial, a new conviction and a new sentence that will extend the court’s initial criminal case, ”he concluded.
The press service of the SK of the Kaluga region did not answer RT questions, referring to Art. 161 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (“Inadmissibility of disclosure of data from a preliminary investigation”). At the same time, investigators said that the prosecutor’s office of Obninsk found the initiation of a new case against an oncologist legal and justified.
The Prosecutor General’s Office could not promptly respond to a request from RT and promised to provide a comment later.
Paid of their own free will
Sviridov during the trial did not deny that he asked his patients to pay extra if necessary - but only for supplies for the operation, and not for helping to obtain subsidies.
“In 2010, the state began to allocate money for brachytherapy for citizens,” he explained to RT. - The subsidy amounted to 486 thousand rubles, and this was usually enough. In 2015, after changes in calculation methods, the amount was halved - to 234 thousand. And this money never covered the real costs of treating a patient - only micro sources per patient cost up to half a million rubles. There was a stalemate: patients needed urgent help, but they could not officially pay extra. ”
- © Clinical Hospital №8 of FMBA of Russia
According to him, during the trial of the criminal case, the medical documents of all 218 patients who were operated on by patients for a certain period were examined. It was found that the treatment of each of them lacked a dedicated financial standard, and the absolute majority of patients did not have even two “quotas,” Sviridov emphasized.
“Neither the investigation nor the court gave an answer, how did I operate these 218 patients if I used the funds received to satisfy my personal selfish motives, as a bribe, and not for the actual treatment of patients? I, in turn, officially asked the Ministry of Health how to treat people in this situation, but I didn’t get a clear answer. He wrote to the government apparatus, the State Duma and the Federation Council. ”
Patients who transferred money to the doctor at the court confirmed that they paid of their own free will, realizing that the financial norm does not cover the real costs of the operation.
The oncologist notes that due to the continuation of the criminal prosecution, he still cannot return to medical practice.
“We barely agreed with the hospital’s management that we would resume treating patients in the center, but on a paid basis, as I was charged with a new charge and a preventive measure was chosen,” Sviridov said in an interview with RT. - There are a lot of people who are waiting for my help now. During the period of my criminal prosecution (from December 2016 to the present), at least three hundred cancer patients could be operated on and returned to normal life at the Brachytherapy Center of KB No. 8 of the FMBA of Russia. But this has not been done. ”
In 2018, only seven operations were performed at the Obninsk Center. The response of the management of KB No. 8 to a lawyer's request states that a little less than 1.8 million rubles were compensated for these operations according to the standard from the budget, but the actual costs of treatment amounted to almost 3.5 million rubles. Since the beginning of 2019, operations have not been carried out at all because of the inability to meet the limits of the standard, and the work of the Center was suspended.