On 2 October 2018 at the meeting of the Committee of Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine on Public Health, the Permanent Representative of President of Ukraine in ARC Borys Babin reported on current state of healthcare in the temporarily occupied territory (TOT) of Ukraine in Crimea and measures of medicine services improvement, provided to the Crimean residents in mainland Ukraine. The meeting was attended by the other People’s Deputies, by the staff representatives of Armed Forces of Ukraine, non-governmental organizations and the press.

During his speech, Borys Babin stressed on the establishment of healthcare system by the occupying authorities in the TOT of Ukraine in Crimea, particularly the illegal implementation of the Russian standards of healthcare and targeted institutional programs in the peninsula, emphasizing the staffing crisis, caused by the shortage of healthcare personnel. A special attention was paid to the current sanitary and epidemiological condition of TOT of Ukraine in Crimea, particularly to the consequences of environmental crisis in the North of Crimea due to the activity of chemical industry.

The Permanent Representative pointed out the urgent need of free access to the qualitative medical services in mainland Ukraine by IDPs and the citizens, coming from the temporarily occupied Crimea. Boris Babin highlighted the need to involve the medical educational establishments into the program “Crimea-Ukraine” to create favorable conditions for the Crimean residents to get medical education in mainland Ukraine. Following the report, the Committee supported the tasks of the Plan of Urgent Measures on Counteracting the Russian Aggression from the TOT of Ukraine in Crimea, Protection of the Interests of State, Citizens of Ukraine and Ukrainian Legal Persons in Crimea for the period of 2018-2019 and as the result the relevant measures of parliamentary response to be developed.