Metinvest Group jointly with Rinat Akhmetov’s Foundation and Vadym Novynskiy’s Foundation delivers up to 100 tons of oxygen per day to Ukrainian hospitals. This was reported by Aleksandr Vyshnyakov, Director of the Regional Development Department of Metinvest Group at the forum of the European Business Association – EBA Sustainable Development Day.
“If we rely on the statistics that we have today in the media regarding the need, 25% of oxygen is the oxygen of the enterprises of Metinvest. In other words, steelmakers provide oxygen to every fourth bed in hospitals,” Aleksandr VYSHNYAKOV said.
In October, when there was a shortage of oxygen on the market and coronavirus cases were on the rise, Metinvest Group started getting approached by doctors and executive authorities – all asking to help with oxygen. In this situation an emergency response center was established and an action plan was created together with the Ministry of Health in order to respond to all requests in time. In October 1,740 tons of oxygen were shipped to hospitals in Ukraine.
Since the beginning of the year the assistance has already exceeded 4 thousand tons, which makes Metinvest Group the largest private supplier of oxygen. All the oxygen is free of charge for the state hospitals – not only in the cities of business presence, but also in other regions of Ukraine.
Recently, Metinvest has supplied oxygen to Sumy and Khmelnitsky regions. Now we provide 12 regions, i.e. every second region.
— Aleksandr VYSHNYAKOV, Director of the Regional Development Department of Metinvest Group
In 2020, Rinat Akhmetov together with SCM businesses, “Shakhtar” football club and Rinat Akhmetov’s Foundation were the first to help the country in the fight against the coronavirus. On the personal initiative of Rinat Akhmetov, around UAH 500 mln. were assigned for this purpose within the framework of Fighting COVID-19 in Ukraine Foundation’s project. The project helped 1.4 mln. people to survive. It is the largest contribution one donor made to the public healthcare of Ukraine since independence. More than 500 medical institutions across the country received more than 1,000 pieces of equipment, including 216 lung ventilators. As well as hundreds of thousands of rapid tests, PPE and consumables.
Vadym Novynskiy’s Foundation directed over UAH 100 mln. to fight with the epidemic of coronavirus infection in Ukraine. The funds were directed for purchasing of lung ventilators, PCR-tests and specialized laboratories, personal protective equipment for medical workers, etc. All those were distributed in the hospitals of Donetsk, Kherson, Mykolaiv, Dnipropetrovsk, Zaporizhzhya and Kharkiv regions in a centralized way. In addition, UAH 3.8 mln. were allocated for financial support of 31 families of the medical workers who died of COVID-19.