A new scandal is stirring up in Ukraine. Power and the opposition are accusing one another of corruption while purchasing medical equipment, the newspaper Delo reports.

Yesterday, on November 17 Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko has accused the former Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych of corruption. Allegedly, being Prime Minister, he purchased lung motors at the exorbitant price – Hr 300,000 while they are purchased now at the price of Hr 110,000. Premier intends to create a special multiagency commission to investigate how previously the procurement was pursued. Besides MPs, representatives of all coercive structures should be included in this commission. "Once at least one fact becomes known that authorities bought medical equipment and medicine by means of illicit payoffs and incomprehensible markup, but not at the price of the manufacturer, I will personally initiate prosecutions," - summed up Yulia Tymoshenko.

Meanwhile, the Party of Regions decided to make the government a retaliation strike. The head of the Verkhovna Rada Health Committee Tatiana Bakhteyeva filed a request to Yulia Tymoshenko, accusing the government for the purchase of 450 sets of obsolete lung motors. According to her, lung motors are made by American company General Electric, but now they are in Israel and have not been used for a long time for unknown reasons. "We doubt either of scheme and price – approximately it will come to Hr 110,000. Why the products of such well-known American manufacturer are bought at such low price and are purchased through a broker in Israel?" – is said in the Bakhteyeva’s request. She gives the following example: previously Cabinet purchased similar lung motors in Austria at the price of EUR 50,000.

In addition, MP from the Party of Regions Tatiana Bakhteyeva explained why the government of Viktor Yanukovych procured lung motors at the price of Hr 300,000. "In 2007, when the Prime Minister was Viktor (Yanukovych – editor.), and the Minister of Health - Communist Yuri Haydayev, authorities purchased lung motors for patients under anesthesia. And now we are talking about devices with a membrane oxygenator, which are needed for patients with bilateral pneumonia,"- says Bakhteyeva.

However, ex-Health Minister Mykola Polishchuk says: 300,000 hryvnias is a very high price. According to him, in 2005 he bought similar machines at the price of about 50,000. "Then we really were able to purchase the equipment at an unprecedented low prices, but now the Kyiv factory Burevestnik has modernized them, so the price amounts to Hr 100,000", - noted Mykola Polishchuk.

The dispute about the price of medical equipment will continue today also. For the first time the commission will make a meeting to investigate corrupt practices in the procurement of medical equipment and drugs in 2007-2009.