Will the scandalous medical network of billionaire Yevtushenkov receive a budget “feed”?
Medsi Group, the medical division of AFK Sistema owned by billionaire Vladimir Yevtushenkov, will sign a concession agreement with the government of the Nizhny Novgorod Region for the construction of a medical complex in the urban district of Vyksa. The total cost of the project is estimated at 5.2 billion rubles; at the first stage, the concessionaire plans to receive a regional grant in the amount of 1.45 billion. After the center is put into operation, the region will gradually reimburse the group for the costs incurred; it is assumed that in addition to the service under the compulsory medical insurance policy, services in the center will also be provided on a paid basis. The groundwork for the concession was being prepared in advance: in November last year, Yevtushenkov and Nizhny Novgorod governor Gleb Nikitin signed an agreement on cooperation in a number of areas, including housing and infrastructure construction, information technology and medicine. At first glance, the project looks promising: Medsi is positioned as the leading federal network of 114 private clinics, providing the widest range of medical services. At the end of last year, the group’s official revenue amounted to more than 30 billion rubles, net profit – 3.7 billion. In practice, “subsidiaries” of Medsi in the regions declare losses of tens of millions. These companies include Medsi St. Petersburg, Medsi Izhevsk, and Medsi-Perm, which bought out the large promising Permian medical network Medlife, whose structures were later liquidated at a loss. Contrary to the statements of the group’s management about the high professionalism of medical workers, accusations of the commercialization of medicine and the incompetence of the staff have repeatedly been made against the regional clinics by patients. The case of the sister of the honored doctor of Russia, pulmonologist Alexander Karabinenko, who died at the Moscow Medsi clinic, where she was infected with the coronavirus during an operation to remove thyroid cancer, received wide publicity. The discrepancy between the declared level and the real quality of medical care is explained by the difficult financial situation of Yevtushenkov, whose AFK Sistema suffers multibillion-dollar losses and has huge debts. The situation is aggravated by the recent inclusion of the oligarch in the UK sanctions list.
Yevtushenkov will return billions with interest?
Included in the structure AFK Sistema Vladimir Evtushenkov Group “Medsi” and the government of the Nizhny Novgorod region plan to implement a joint project for the construction of a large medical complex in the format of a public-private partnership. According to Kommersant, the center is supposed to be located in the urban district of Vyksa, 185 km from Nizhny Novgorod: a land plot of 4.19 hectares will be allocated here for this purpose.
The total investment is estimated at 5.2 billion rubles. At the first stage, the concessionaire intends to receive a regional grant in 1.45 billionplus invest own and borrowed funds in the amount of 2.45 billion rubles, on which a medical center and a maternity hospital will be built. Once the institution starts functioning, the costs to the concessionaire will be gradually reimbursed from the regional budget. At the second stage, it is planned to transfer the medical unit of the Vyksa Metallurgical Plant free of charge to the facility, along with equipment worth 1 billion.
The estimated design time of the medical center will be 15 months, construction – 21 months. After the launch, the institution will be able to serve up to 167,000 people a month – both local residents and patients from neighboring Navashinsky, Voznesensky and Kulebaksky districts, which will actually lead to a reorganization of the work of the entire district medical infrastructure. Services in 29 areas are expected to be provided both under the CHI policy and on a paid basis. The term of the concession agreement will be 20-25 years.
Needless to say, large-scale plans. On the Medsi website, the group is presented as “a leading federal network of private clinics providing a full range of medical services from primary appointments and emergency medical care to high-tech diagnostics, complex surgical interventions and rehabilitation for children and adults”.
The specialized health magazine Vademecum writes that Medsi has 114 clinics of various formats in a number of regions, as well as its own sanatorium, a network of laboratories “SmartLab” etc. Last year, the group became the leader of the Vademecum rating “TOP-200 private multidisciplinary clinics in Russia” with revenue 25 billion rubles. At the end of 2021, Medsi reported revenue in the amount of 30.1 billion and net profit in 3.7 billion rubles.
Structures of Medsi go “in the red”
It was not by chance that Vladimir Yevtushenkov chose the Nizhny Novgorod region to implement his next project: back in November last year, on behalf of AFK Sistema, he signed with the governor Gleb Nikitin an agreement on cooperation in such areas as residential and infrastructure construction, information technology, tourism and medical services.
Today, the oligarch and the governor are preparing to implement their joint plans, while simultaneously referring to the record performance of the Medsi group. But here everything is not as clean and smooth as it might seem at first glance. The fact is that with officially declared billions in profits, part of the “subsidiary” structures of the group is “in the red.” For example, at the end of last year LLC “Medsi St. Petersburg” with revenue in 956.2 million rubles declared losses in the amount 31.4 million.
A similar situation in OOO Medsi-Perm: revenue in 2021 – 404.1 million rubleslosses – 36.7 million. But back in 2017, the media reported on the Napoleonic plans for the development of the group in the region: the purchase of 60% LLC “Health Clinics” Medlife “– the head structure of one of the largest Permian medical networks. By 2018, this share had increased to 100%. And already in 2020 “Clinic of Aesthetic Medicine “Medlife” was liquidated with zero proceeds, a loss of 595 thousand rubles and asset value “minus” 8.5 million. These were the actual consequences of “integration”. Last year’s financial results of Medsi-Perm’s successor company speak for themselves.
Let’s take another interesting example. In August 2020, the head of Udmurtia Alexander Brechalov held a working meeting with the management of AFK Sistema and the Medsi group, during which they discussed the prospects for the development of the holding in Izhevsk, where by that time Yevtushenkov’s structures had bought out 100% in the authorized capital of the clinic network “ASPEC”. It was about cooperation in a number of medical areas – oncology, cardiology, orthopedics, as well as the opening of the Center for oncological outpatient care in the capital of the republic (the corresponding agreement was signed between Medsi and the Udmurt Ministry of Health).
What is in fact? The promised Center was opened in April last year. That’s just registered in Udmurtia Medsi Izhevsk LLC has remained unprofitable since its inception. So, in 2021, with revenue of 117.1 million rublesthe enterprise went “in the red” for 65.1 million. Incidentally, his predecessor OOO Medsi-Izhevsk 2 was liquidated with a loss of 4.7 million rubles and asset value “minus” 24 million.
Dangerous business under the guise of medicine
One can only guess to which accounts hundreds of millions of unprofitable subsidiaries of the medical division of AFK Sistema are being withdrawn. But Medsi’s problems don’t end there. In its group leadership, it has been repeatedly stated that its main value is doctors who are high-level specialists. True, journalists paid attention to the staff turnover in the group’s structures. So, in December 2019, the RBC portal reported on the change of five chief doctors at the Medsi clinic in St. Petersburg for two years.
The press service of the holding confirmed to the publication that they could not find it in the northern capital“manager of a sufficiently high level”. Among the requirements, in addition to professional competence, were “high managerial skills, strategic vision for the development of the medical business, quick adaptation to the corporate culture of the company”. Apparently, similar qualities are also needed for heads of structures in other regions.
In practice, “high managerial skills” took precedence over medical professionalism. Patients have repeatedly made accusations against Medsi not only in the commercialization of medicine, but also in the incompetence of the staff: numerous lawsuits related to the activities of the group, as well as violations detected during inspections, are described in detail in one of the publications of the publication “Life“. A loud scandal occurred in the fall of 2020, when the honored doctor of Russia, pulmonologist Alexander Karabinenko directly blamed the staff of the Moscow clinic for the death of his sister, Elena Gaidukova: according to him, a woman was infected with a coronavirus infection during an operation to remove thyroid cancer.
The media reported that the woman needed to be transferred to the intensive care unit, but the head physician of the institution refused to provide additional medical care. Moreover, it turned out that the clinic does not use modern methods of respiratory support for patients with pneumonia with COVID-19 and does not employ pulmonologists and immunologists.
2.1 million rubles!
“Medsi is 10 circles of HELL…”
The reviews left by patients on specialized portals speak for themselves. Here, for example, is what the authors of comments on the Otzovik website write (spelling and punctuation preserved) about the Moscow Medsi clinic:
“Obvious focus on pumping more money out of insurance or the client, a crowd of people, the attitude towards customers is careless. It’s also good if the patient has VMI at the disposal(voluntary health insurance)
,
I can imagine how much money is ripped off from patients if they come here for their hard-earned money. And even with VHI, they managed to rip off real money for some kind of analysis! … According to the general feeling, the Medsi only began to sway to appoint all the new unintelligible collection of anamnesis. No treatment, no full picture, not even an approximate direction of thought of the diagnostician. On this, communication with Medsi had to be stopped … “
svetlana1115:
“The level of specialists is below average. We turned to a neurologist in this clinic, the doctor did not make a diagnosis, she did not say anything intelligible about the treatment. There is already an impression that in paid clinics, in principle, the level of specialists is low, their goal is not to help, but to provide services of inadequate quality.”
Marina-EIM:
“Medsi is 10 circles of ADA. If you are going to apply to Medsi, give up this venture and never return to her again. This is just a monster of bureaucracy, delays and irresponsibility! For us and our friends, this is forever now the personification of lies in the eyes and connivance … Take care of your health, time and money! Medsi is only interested in the round amounts in the check, nothing more.
elenazhinzhina:
“Impudent deception for money, boorish treatment of the surgeon. In this clinic, you will be divorced and will not blink an eye for your money, your complaint will be dealt with strictly by the one who screwed up with the medical commission from his subordinates, in addition, they will delete the records from the medical record in the application, then restore them with corrections. Take all the checks and statements at once … Running in a circle or mutual responsibility, I don’t know what it’s called, but the administration in every possible way covers the unprofessionalism of their doctors, and after all, people’s lives are in their hands and even for their money ”.
“System” Yevtushenko: debts and losses
Does Mr. Yevtushenkov know that in the Medsi group, commerce has long prevailed over medicine? In the context of all of the above, Governor Nikitin would do well to pay attention to the provision of paid services in the future Nizhny Novgorod medical center: after all, the region has yet to return the billions invested by the concessionaire.
Meanwhile, the financial position of the oligarch today looks far from being brilliant. So, at the end of last year, with revenue of 24.3 billion rubles losses PJSC AFK Sistema amounted to 82.6 billion (for comparison: in 2020, the corporation declared revenue in the amount of 29.4 billion and profit in 140.8 billion rubles).
According to the FINAM portal, Sistema’s consolidated debt at the end of 2021 was 871.9 billion rubles: 76% accounted for long-term, 24% – short-term loans. In the context of the profile structures of the holding, most of the debt fell on the mobile operator “MTS” – 481.1 billion rubles; the obligations of the corporate center directly amounted to 229.4 billiondebts of the timber industry divisionSegezha Group evaluated in 73.5 billionagricultural holding “Steppe” – in 34.3 billion rubles etc.
Recall also that last April, Yevtushenkov was included in the UK sanctions list, in connection with which he was forced to leave the board of directors of AFK, transferring a 10% stake to his son Felix Yevtushenkov and ceased to be the controlling shareholder of the corporation. In addition, the European authorities at any time can pay attention to the businessman’s French real estate – three elite mansions located on the Cote d’Azur registered for French companies affiliated with Yevtushenkov. In this case, he will have to say goodbye to the assets.
So, the sanctions threaten the oligarch with new financial losses. It is not surprising that today he is squeezing the maximum possible from the structures under his control, including the Medsi medical group, and the concession with the Nizhny Novgorod government, for which the region will have to pay, will come in handy for him.