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At that time, the Minister of Health, Aurelijus Veryga, was occupying the chair of a blood donor, and next to him, Daumantas Gutauskas, 36, had just been appointed director of the National Blood Center (NCC). These types of images from the public relations campaign were shared in August 2019 by the Ministry of Health (SAM), owner of this center.
Everything happened in an instant: D.Gutauskas changed his business to an officer’s chair almost one day.
The records of the Registry Center attest that on August 1, 2019, he appointed Raimondas Josiukaitė, a junior, director of his company Baltijos Medicina, and as of August 2, he became director of NKC.
Public relations campaigns are quickly forgotten, only the daily work remains.
However, what the auditors included in this month’s NKC internal audit report shows that during D. Gutauskas’ eighteen months of leadership, the center found itself in a sinkhole of losses, high costs for attorneys, and legal affairs. slopes.
I do not provide blood
NKC is a blood component surgical survivor. Erythrocytes, platelets, fresh frozen plasma are essential for rescuing people after accidents or performing complex surgeries.
Hospitals plan in advance how many of those components they will need per year, and those numbers are provided to the NCC.
Both the year before and in 2018, the NKC provided the necessary medical facilities.
But there was chaos last year. The supply was interrupted: fewer blood components were transported to hospitals than they needed, for example, instead of 69 thousand. NKC mass erythrocyte treatment facility units last year reached about 61.4 thousand. units.
But as if ignoring these figures, D. Gutauskas told Lietuvos Rytas that last year the NKC was 98 percent satisfied. the need for blood components.
Conducted an audit of the institution.
The leadership skills of the NKC director injected by A.Veryga soon turned into five-digit amounts paid to newly hired attorneys.
After receiving information about what is happening at the NCC, the institution’s internal audit was completed in early March after reaching the Seimas Health Affairs Committee in the fall.
To find out the real situation regarding the satisfaction of the need for blood components, the auditors interviewed the largest hospitals in the country: Santara Clinic, Vilnius City Clinical Hospital, Vilnius University Hospital (RVUL), Kaunas Clinic and Republican Hospital Šiauliai.
It turned out that last year it was not possible to provide the RVUL and the Šiauliai Hospital with almost 9 thousand. erythrocyte units, others about 540 units of other blood components.
The blood components are paid by the State Health Insurance Fund and the price of a package is about 88 euros.
Consequently, the NKC that did not complete the task did not receive about 840 thousand last year. entry.
Is the COVID-19 pandemic to blame for this uncontrolled situation?
“The difficulties are not caused by the coronavirus and quarantine, but by mismanagement,” said an NKC employee interviewed by Lietuvos Rytas (asked not to be identified). – After all, the ministry has given permission to invite donors through quarantine.
All you have to do is organize everything safely.
The Santara clinics, for example, have their own blood center. They also source blood and, if necessary, rescue other hospitals.
But the NKC Donations Division can no longer summon donors after last year’s reorganization.
For example, last year during the first quarantine, the NKC brigade went to Marijampolė for various donors and, at the same time, the Santara clinics went to the army and received 80 donors ”.
This interlocutor is one of the 38 employees of the National Blood Center, who put their signatures and informed the Seimas Health Affairs Committee about the situation.
Plasma will have to be destroyed
The plasma trade is suffocating nearly every manager at NKC. And last year, the center as a whole jumped: it did not sell a single liter of blood plasma and, for the first time in the last decade, suffered 600 thousand. loss of EUR.
This is a figure provided by the auditors and has an important implication: some of the accumulated plasma is out of date. 3.3 tons of plasma, the value of which is approximately 300 thousand, has already exceeded the established validity period of 36 months. euros.
Obsolete plasma will probably have to be thrown away, or more precisely, thrown away and paid for. But how to do all this, SAM has not even predicted.
According to data from February 10 of this year, the NCC accumulated 52.4 thousand. liters of frozen plasma prepared in 2017-2020.
Since there is not enough space for this amount in the NKC special rooms and freezers, three refrigerated semi-trailers are rented to store it. Last year, NKC paid 43.7 thousand LTL just for its lease to Hanse Trailer. euros.
However, if plasma sales contracts are prepared in a timely manner, NKC’s storage facility is generally not full.
Another nuance is that the storage of plasma in semi-trailers has not been authorized by the State Agency for the Control of Medicines (VVKT).
Therefore, there is no guarantee that storing the product in this way will not violate the temperature regime.
It is true that Mr. Gutauskas explained to Lietuvos Rytas that IWT, which supervises the pharmaceutical activities carried out by the center, as well as the equipment used for these activities, has never detected any infringement.
Trying to chase the train
According to the auditors, last year NKC received 6.72 million for blood components sold to medical institutions. Income of 1 million euros for plasma sold for pharmaceutical production. euros.
Under the tripartite agreement between NKC, the Latvian company Baltijas terapeitiskais serviss and the German pharmaceutical company Octapharma, 15,000 liters of plasma were sold.
Last year, about 5.74 million were received for blood components. Unused plasma was not sold at all.
When asked about this, D. Gutauskas explained to Lietuvos Rytas that the plasma sale agreement was signed in January this year, and the sale price is much higher than in 2019.
According to the audit data, the contract was concluded for 31.9 thousand. liters of sales, the price will exceed 3 million. euros.
Currently 5,700 liters of frozen plasma are shipped to Germany, the rest will be shipped later.
“The plasma sale process took a long time because the description of its procedure was coordinated with the STT. And in order to offer the highest possible price of plasma in the market, it was expected that IWT would issue the Good Manufacturing Practices certificates ”, assured D. Gutauskas.
Pleased the lawyers
There are more shadows in the activities of the NKC.
Although the center also has a paid legal department, it has become clear that neither the head of the NCC nor his subordinates can manage as they should. At least this is demonstrated by the conclusions of the Public Procurement Office (PSA).
The Blood Center was found to have concluded two new legal agreements in 2020 – it purchased legal services from the international law firm TGS Baltic.
Last year, 28.4 thousand people posed for them. EUR, in January this year – another 7 thousand. euros.
This is the money that is paid to law firms not only for representation in litigation, but also for routine day-to-day legal work, such as consulting on the operation or structure of an institution.
Public tenders were needed to purchase the services of lawyers to solve such common problems, but it was not even announced.
In addition, the Blood Center has an agreement in force since 2018 with the Mikalauskas law firm, Gutauskas ir partneriai QED, which represents cases.
They have paid him around 45.5 thousand in the last two years. euros.
Another excuse to spend came when NKC decided to change the structure of the institution at the end of 2020, despite the fact that it had already been done last May.
But D. Gutauskas, answering Lietuvos Rytas’ questions, explained that TGS Baltic was used to participate in the legal proceedings: “This concerns the former heads of NKC, so it is important not to harm the institution.
To date, NKC has won all legal disputes with the highest level of legal assistance. “
Conflict of interests
By the way, Mr. Gutauskas is the sole owner of the Baltijos Medicina company.
In 2011, he created this sole proprietorship to supply medical supplies to hospitals, which also include NKC customers.
Mr. Gutauskas completed the declaration of private interests at the end of 2020, stating that his life partner R. Josiukaitė is the director of Baltijos Medicinos, as well as the head of the Freight Forwarders Department of the largest Lithuanian retail chain.
The documents presented to the Chief Ethics Commission (COEC) attest that Gutauskas was already director of the NCC in 2019. On August 19, 2006, on behalf of the head of Medicine Baltijos, he signed a two-year agreement with the Republican Hospital Šiauliai for the purchase and sale of intraocular lenses used for vision correction operations. Its value is 28.2 thousand. euros.
According to the VPN, during the time when “Baltic Medicine” was run by R. Josiukaitė, the company signed agreements for the sale of medical products with eight clients of the blood center: RVUL, Marijampolė Hospital and others. And Mr. Gutauskas, as the owner of a sole proprietorship, is the sole beneficiary of these agreements.
The COEC has transmitted this data to the SAM and is clarifying whether a formal transfer of responsibilities to a life partner is a sufficient precondition to ensure that the head of the NCC can be impartial when concluding contracts for the supply of blood components with hospitals.
According to the lawyers, the simple fact that there is the possibility of influencing certain decisions is enough, and this is already a glimpse of a conflict of interest.
But D. Gutauskas does not think so: “Baltijos Medicine’s suppliers are the manufacturers of medical devices in the US and China.
The company does not use local subcontractors in the tenders and does not participate as a subcontractor in the tenders of other companies.
During my leadership, Baltijos Medicina did not participate in tenders organized by NKC and did not enter into contracts with NKC ”.
According to the director of NKC, the public procurement procedures, after which Baltijos Medicina and Šiauliai Hospital concluded a contract, were initiated and executed long before the time when he was appointed director of the center.
The case of the former director was taken by the court.
The Vilnius Regional Court has opened a criminal case in which the former director of the National Blood Center, Joana Bikulčienė, is accused of abuse of power.
The prosecution previously announced that data collected during the preliminary investigation launched in 2018 suggested that the former head of NKC may have agreed with Antanas Petrošius, a shareholder in the private company Solis Tribus, to allow the company to operate in his field. .
Following suspicions of corruption, J. Bikulčienė resigned from the post of director of the National Blood Center in April 2018. She denied the allegations.
According to J. Bikulčienė, the suspicions that I am trying to help the Lithuanian company Solis Tribus monopolize the collection of blood plasma and the supply of blood products in Lithuania arose after the competitors: Octapharma representative in Latvia addressed the Lithuanian authorities, including the Ministry of Health.
