Ministry of Finance of Ukraine, take the defence position towards the seriously ill patients. These are thousands of human lives. It is very difficult to find words when a person without medication is suffocating, cannot get out of bed, “lives” in a hospital or is breathing on a machine. People, these are lives, not dry statistics.

“In 2024, the treatment of patients with serious diseases is at risk of disruption.
Part of the patients will very soon be left without medicines, if the Ministry of Finance and the Government do not exempt the purchase of medicines from VAT.
We are talking about medicines and medical products for patients with serious diseases, which are purchased by the SE Medical Procurement of Ukraine with state funds every year.
Until the end of 2023, these drugs were purchased without value added tax, but since January 1, 2024, this norm will expire. Now drugs will be bought at 7% VAT.
The main argument of the Ministry of Finance is that the state budget needs to be replenished. And if we tax the purchase of medicines, it is hundreds of millions of hryvnias per year.
However, if we are talking about the purchase of medicines at the expense of the state, the budget will not be filled. These (budgetary) funds will simply return (to the state budget) in the form of VAT. It is like transferring a coin from one pocket to another – as a result, the number of coins will not increase.
Instead, the health and lives of millions of Ukrainian patients will be at risk. They will simply be left without the necessary medicines.
That’s why there won’t be enough medicine — the state will be able to buy 7% less medicine for the same money.
Patients will not receive their medicine on time — there will be delays in deliveries. The VAT issue is currently not settled at all, and the settlement will require a lot of time. At this time, medicines will be in warehouses. Someone simply will not endure such delays.
The fewer medicines, the higher their cost. And this is another obstacle to the availability of treatment for patients.
The market will be controlled by several distributors, competition will decrease and drug prices will rise. This will happen because non-residents cannot pay VAT, and therefore it will be difficult for them to participate in purchases.
But this is not the only problem faced by seriously ill Ukrainians. Programs have been operating in Ukraine for two years that allows pharmaceutical companies to provide patients with innovative medicines free of charge (in particular, “compassionate medicines”).
However, they do not work. After all, pharmaceutical companies that want to provide Ukrainians with medicine free of charge are also forced to pay VAT (that is, they provide the medicine themselves and pay tax on top of that). They wrote about it in more detail here: https://bit.ly/48RqLO4

Ukraine as a state must do everything necessary to provide patients with treatment.
For now, all we see is the creation of additional obstacles. Critically ill patients are placed in conditions of survival: those who are lucky will receive medicine, those who are not will die.
We warned about a possible problem a long time ago.
In the response to our appeal, the Ministry of Finance refers to the obligation to the International Monetary Fund “to refrain from any tax policy and administrative measures that may negatively affect the tax revenue base.”
However, in all of 2023, the Ministry did not ask the IMF to review this medicine decision, and generally did nothing to avoid this situation.
The Ministry of Finance of Ukraine and the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine should initiate exemption from VAT of medicines purchased at state expense, as well as compassionate medicines and drugs provided after the completion of clinical trials.
Patient organizations have already sent a letter with this problem to the International Monetary Fund. We hope for support from the IMF, and especially for an active resolution of the issue from the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Health of Ukraine, the Cabinet of Ministers and the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine!”( Patients of Ukraine).

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