Dealers from Kostroma Medtekhnika, from which the fund of a State Duma deputy bought 50 worthless ventilators for the hospital, were given five
Charitable “delay” from Grigory Anikeev
The Leninsky District Court of Vladimir issued a guilty verdict in a high-profile criminal case on the supply of artificial lung ventilation (ALV) devices with an expired registration certificate to a local COVID hospital. Andrey Gerasimov and Oksana Ryzhova, the beneficiary and commercial director of NPF Kostromskaya Medtekhnika LLC, were found guilty of fraud on an especially large scale by a group of persons by prior agreement (part 4 of article 159 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation) and illegal sale of substandard and unregistered medical devices in on a large scale (clause “a” part 2 of article 238.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation), said the state prosecutor Irina Shuvalova.
Grigory AnikeevAndrei Gerasimov was sentenced to five and a half years in prison with a fine of 2 million rubles, Oksana Ryzhova – five years and one month in prison with a fine of 1 million rubles, they were taken into custody in the courtroom. They are to serve their sentence in a penal colony, the sentence has not yet entered into force.
The court considered the version of the investigation proven, according to which the merchants deliberately misled representatives of Vladimir’s commercial organizations when supplying 97 ventilators. The damage in the criminal case exceeded 10.5 million rubles.
According to the protocol of the commission, which included the former deputy director of the regional health department Anatoly Ukolov, as well as the chief doctors and specialists of the Design Bureau and Hospital No. 6, three tested devices showed “a discrepancy between the output and set ventilation parameters (the tidal volume spread is 10–50% of the set parameters)” . “The protocol of the commission stipulates that, given the control algorithm and its technical capabilities, this type of ventilator is not suitable for long-term artificial lung ventilation, especially in patients with acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), caused, among other things, by coronavirus infection. The commission found that this equipment (IVL PHASE-5 NR) can be an independent cause of life-threatening complications and cannot be used for medical purposes, ”the materials of the prosecutor’s check say.
The operating instructions for this technique say that the shelf life of ventilators in the package is no more than five years. At the same time, Elena Mikhailova, chief doctor of city hospital No. 6, explained that the devices were planned to be used for their intended purpose.
Grigory Anikeev, a State Duma deputy from United Russia, wanted to donate medical equipment to Vladimir Hospital No. 6 repurposed as a covid hospital through his charity fund Mercy and Order.
At the end of March 2020, the Vladimir-based company purchased FAZA-5 NR anesthesia and respiratory devices from LLC NPF Kostroma Medtekhnika, and on April 7, the medical equipment was transferred to the hospital. When receiving charitable assistance, it turned out that the medical equipment was produced in 1999-2001 with registration certificates valid until November 24, 2008, and the devices expired more than 15 years ago.
On April 6, Anikeev’s Mercy and Order Charitable Foundation reported on its website that the parliamentarian “purchased 50 ventilators at his own expense,” which were transferred to the Vladimir Region Health Department.
A criminal case on the supply of low-quality medical equipment was initiated on April 22. Shortly before this, Mr. Anikeev, in an appeal to fellow countrymen (later removed from the website of the Mercy and Order Foundation), stated that the ventilators were intended to be used only in case of an emergency. He also expressed his readiness to purchase expensive ventilators for residents of the Vladimir region for 50 million rubles. The deputy has not fulfilled his promise yet. At the end of 2019, Grigory Anikeev was again recognized as the richest deputy of the State Duma, his income amounted to about 2.25 billion rubles.
