Medical Procurement of Ukraine complete all procedures for procurement of 90,000 biohazard suits, no response from Health Ministry
State-owned enterprise (SOE) Medical Procurement of Ukraine has completed all required procedures for procuring 90,000 biohazard suits in line with the rules approved in government resolution No. 225 dated March 20, 2020 related to some issues of procurement of goods, labor and services required for implementing the activities aimed at preventing the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in Ukraine, although no response from the Health Ministry has been received.
According to a post of the SOE on its Facebook page, 20,000 suits could already be delivered to hospitals.
The SOE said that on April 10, it received an order from the Health Ministry to procure 90,000 biohazard suits for UAH 35.687 million (expected cost is UAH 396 per suit), the product codes are determined by order in accordance with government resolution No. 225 according to Ukrainian tariff heading. On April 11, the SOE prepared the technical requirement and published an annual procurement plan on the ProZorro platform. The SOE monitored 100 similar procurement tenders and analyzed 16 proposals. On April 13, the Health Ministry sent a letter to the Health Ministry for approval. On April 14, a supplier was selected (a Ukrainian manufacturer), which offered the most favorable conditions (UAH 245 per piece), that is, the savings should have amounted to UAH 13.7 million. The SOE signed an agreement with the supplier and sent it to the Health Ministry for approval, but the SOE did not receive an official response from the ministry seven days later.
At the same time, the ministry on April 15 published changes to the annual procurement plan, according to which the department concluded an agreement on the procurement of 71,374 suits made in China for UAH 35.874 million (UAH 488.60 per piece). Explaining this by the need to obtain the suits in accordance with EN 14126 standard for clothing protection. However, the Health Ministry did not set such a requirement initially. It appeared only in the changes to the plan published by the Health Ministry.
The SOE said that the goods that the ministry plans to procure will still need to be checked for compliance with this certification in Ukraine.
