Transplantologists continue to smear tar
The court sent another high-profile case on the "transplantation" article for further investigation
Irina Desyatnikova, "FACTS"About 2.5 thousand patients with the use of bioimplants from soft tissues and tissues of the musculoskeletal system operate annually in clinics of Ukraine.
With their help, more than 800 patients a year get on their feet. But the need for bioimplants is much greater. According to the Coordination Center of Transplantology of the Ministry of Health of Ukraine, domestic hospitals require more than six thousand bone and bone-tendon bioimplants, five thousand corneal, about a thousand heart valves and vessels per year. Every year, 10-12 thousand domestic patients require such medical care.
The closest competitors of the German "Tutogen Medical GmbH", together with which bioimplants used in Ukrainian medicine are manufactured, are American and French companies. It is possible that the latest scandalous publications are connected with their desire to oust Germans from the market, since, according to the head of the State Enterprise "Bioimplant" Igor Aleshchenko, the prices for the tutogen of joint Ukrainian-German production are five times lower than the world ones!
The "transplant" scandal involving Ukraine began this time in Germany – with a publication in Spiegel. In the article of this publication, in particular, it was reported that the morgues of our country illegally take the tissues and anatomical materials of the deceased and transfer them to Kiev – to the State Enterprise "Bioimplant". From there, they are taken to the same Germany, where the Tutogen implant is manufactured on their basis at the Tutogen Medical GmbH company in the Bavarian city of Neukirchen am Brand. While the head of "Bioimplant" Igor Aleshchenko explains to the press how the chain of the bureau of forensic examination – "Bioimplant" – "Tutogen Medical GmbH" works in full compliance with the law, thanks to the products of which tens of thousands of citizens of Ukraine are restored to health, "FACTS" decided to figure out what violations of the law they are trying to accuse the head of the Krivoy Rog Bureau of forensic examination. A criminal case has been initiated against him, about which "Spiegel" wrote.
The case against the head of the Krivoy Rog branch of the Dnipropetrovsk Regional Bureau of Forensic Medical Examinations, Alexander Komolov, was initiated in October last year. He was accused of abusing his official position and deceiving the grief-stricken relatives of the deceased, he obtained consent from his relatives to remove anatomical materials from the bodies for the subsequent manufacture of bioimplants. Our law on transplantology is so written out that if a person did not dispose of his body during his lifetime, after death, only family members or relatives who lived with him before death can give consent to the removal of his organs for transplantation or anatomical materials (joints, bones, skin, etc.) for medical purposes.
The head of the Kryvyi Rih morgue was accused that the staff of the forensic examination bureau took advantage of the stressful state of relatives and at a difficult moment slipped documents for signature.
– Interestingly, before police officers came to the allegedly deceived relatives with questions, none of them was going to complain anywhere, – Alexander Komolov told "FACTS". – Where the signal came from to the law enforcement agencies, I can only guess. There have been many violations in the work of the bureau, which I have been heading since 2004, the most "innocent" of which I consider disciplinary. I forbade representatives of the proliferated funeral services to occupy the premises of the bureau, began to restore order, and many did not like it. At first, I received offers of "cooperation", hinted at "kickbacks". And a few months after my appointment in the entrance of the house where I live, at 7.30 in the morning, two strangers with metal pipes wrapped in newspaper ambushed me at the elevator. When they attacked me, they broke both my legs and inflicted other injuries. After that, I was in the hospital for two months, but when I went to work, I continued what I had started. Unknown people have called me home more than once, threatened me, offered to leave in a good way. A criminal case was opened on the fact of the attack on me, but the perpetrators were never found.
And then they opened a criminal case against officials of the forensic examination bureau, according to which I was charged in January of this year. But in what? Isn't it normal that the relatives of the deceased are in a stressful state? This happens always or almost always when a loved one is lost. Psychologists work with relatives, getting consent for the collection of tissues and organs, we help them speed up the painful registration procedure. What's wrong with that or illegal? It is better to ask how many people have been helped by bioimplants produced on the basis of bone tissue, bones, tendons, which are withdrawn from the deceased. We are certified for the right to engage in such activities, we work officially, legally, under an agreement with the State Enterprise "Bioimplant", where we send packaged canned anatomical material. There he is already being tested for hepatitis, AIDS, tuberculosis and rejected. And bioimplants are prepared from healthy material in Germany on the basis of a unique technology.
Alexander Komolov showed a pack of standard forms on which ten people recognized as victims in his case signed that they agreed to withdraw anatomical materials from deceased relatives for the preparation of bioimplants necessary to provide medical care to sick people. He also showed other related documents indicating that all legal procedures were followed.
Investigator Rostislav Savostikov, who signed Komolov's indictment, refused to comment on the case – they say it has been in court for a long time. Although this is not the case, in August the court sent this case for additional investigation.
As the "FACTS" found out, in addition to external competitors, the Krivoy Rog forensic experts also have internal opponents.
There is such a situation in Krivoy Rog: according to the law, an investigator and a forensic medical expert should be the first to arrive to a suddenly deceased or deceased person. And only after examining the body (and drawing up a protocol) is it possible to deliver it to the morgue. The person who appoints the examination is responsible for this delivery, for the safety of the clothes and property of the deceased. The delivery itself must be carried out either by the police or by employees of funeral services. But, contrary to the established procedure, seven private carriers have been doing this in Krivoy Rog for several years. Where they get the information from – from the police or from the ambulance doctors – has not yet been established. Only it turns out that way: they are the first to appear at the relatives of suddenly deceased people or on the street – near a murdered or deceased person found there. These carriers deliver the bodies to hospital morgues, although they have to transport them to the Bureau of forensic examination. The head of the Kryvyi Rih Forensic Examination Bureau, Alexander Komolov, and the director of the Ritual municipal structure authorized to transport the bodies of the deceased and the deceased, Kovalets, even wrote a letter to the head of the regional police headquarters and the prosecutor of Kryvyi Rih, in which they reported that these private carriers help criminals escape punishment. After all, in just five months of 2008-2009, they arbitrarily removed 246 corpses, 54 of which turned out to have obvious signs of violent death...
Thus, medical errors, crime are covered, industrial injuries are hidden. Recently, a woman died in the Krivoy Rog hospital No. 16. Allegedly from pneumonia. The pathologist of the hospital, Daniil Zolotarev, who conducted the autopsy, found a fragment of a catheter in the heart of the deceased and, acting according to the order of the Ministry of Health, called the police. Only thanks to this, the body was sent for forensic examination. Krivoy Rog specialists found that the woman died of acute heart failure, which developed due to the fact that a fragment of a catheter was stuck in the heart.
Now, according to Zolotarev, an internal investigation is being conducted, a commission forensic medical examination has been appointed, which will find out whether the doctors are to blame for the patient's death or whether the cause was a poor-quality catheter.
This is one of the last, but far from the only case when the experts of the Kryvyi Rih Forensic Examination Bureau help to expose crime. So, in April of this year, as a result of a forensic medical examination of the body of a 92-year-old old woman who allegedly died of atherosclerosis, as evidenced by a certificate issued by the doctor of the city hospital No. 3, it turned out that the grandmother was strangled, and before that was beaten on the head with an unknown object.
– All this is recorded in the documents, as well as many other crimes that were tried to hide, but we did not allow it to be done, – says Alexander Komolov. – And although the police are aware of them, for some reason criminal cases are not initiated.
As for the Komolov case, no matter how he suffered the fate of several similar cases, initiated from time to time in our country against the heads of the Bureau of forensic examinations allegedly for violations of the law on transplantation. In Kiev and Lugansk, such cases did not even reach court, they crumbled. But, despite the deplorable experience of others, law enforcement officers for some reason persistently produce new cases, similar as twins, without any prospect of bringing them to an end.
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25.09.2009