A plane from China arrived at Boryspil International Airport delivering 400,000 respirators and 50,000 protective face shields for Ukrainian doctors. This is the last flight from the "air bridge" organized by the President's Office to meet the needs of Ukraine in personal protective equipment and medicines. The Ministry of Health will continue to supply everything necessary. This was reported by Deputy Head of the Office of the President, Secretary of the Coordination Council on Combating the Spread of COVID-19 Kyrylo Tymoshenko.
"In total, more than 25 aircrafts were dispatched to bring cargo to Ukraine," the Deputy Head of the President's Office said after the board’s landing.
According to Kyrylo Tymoshenko, these are, in particular, the goods purchased by the President's Office at the expense of charity funds.
“These are protection means for our doctors. They are delivered promptly and will be delivered to the regions of Ukraine today. These are respirators, protective glasses and more,” he said.
Also, these flights transported cargo purchased by businesses as humanitarian aid to the regions where they are based.
In addition, the abovementioned aircrafts brought commercial cargo.
“We have enabled commercial organizations, especially pharmacy chains and retailers, to bring in goods. First of all, these are ordinary masks for the population. It is these planes, flights from China to Ukraine, that are paid for by commercial organizations,” Kyrylo Tymoshenko emphasized.
According to him, this initiative helped reduce the cost of masks in pharmacies, where their price was about 20-25 hryvnias a month ago.
“Because there were few masks on the Ukrainian market, there were few masks produced, despite the fact that our enterprises were fully loaded. As soon as we allowed the commercial organizations to bring in their own goods, the price started to fall immediately, because many more masks were supplied to pharmacies,” Kyrylo Tymoshenko stressed.
He informed that the President's Office had already accomplished the main task - overcoming the crisis with insufficient means of protection in Ukrainian hospitals. In the future, all purchases will be made by the Ministry of Health.
“The task of the Office of the President was to overcome this crisis. That is why we say that this is the last flight operated by the President's Office. In the future, the Ministry of Health and its structures, state-owned enterprises, will procure the means of protection and other equipment needed for hospitals,” Kyrylo Tymoshenko stressed.
He noted that PCR tests were purchased in China and South Korea until Ukraine started to establish its own production of these systems.
The Deputy Head of the Office of the President announced the release of a detailed report on the work of charity funds next week, which will show what the money was spent on. After all, the expenditures included not only the purchase of protective equipment, but also the repair of ventilators in Ukraine.
“I want to emphasize that everything the Office of the President did cost nothing for the state budget. All this was paid for by charity funds - the things we bought. And the commercial organizations paid themselves for the delivery, paid for the planes, and paid for their purchases,” Kyrylo Tymoshenko noted.