Doctor from Vitebsk fired for criticising Kasinets

• 3.12.2012, 14:40

Pediatrician Ihar Pastnou was dismissed after criticising head of the Vitesbk region Alyaksandr Kasinets in public.

He spoke about wasting government money and the decay of the health care sector in the Vitesbk region, Belsat TV reports.

Ihar Pastnou already suffered for his love for truth two years ago that led to termination of his employment agreement. Lukashenka's aide in the Vitebsk region, Mikalai Damashkevich, defended the doctor. He was proposed another job with a lower salary. Working at medical and obstetric centres in the Vitebsk region, Pastnou has struggled against money wasting in the health care sector and exposed problems in the national and local independent media. He turned attention to uncompleted construction of a surgical unit of the cancer hospital, slow repair works in the infectious diseases hospital and mothballing the building of the Afghan centre.

To hinder Pastnou, an anonymous person published information on the Internet on behalf of the doctor reporting about extortion by polyclinic top officials. The doctor complained to the police over the libel. The police however failed to find the anonymous author.

An inquiry was carried out in connection with the published information regarding medical institutions and social state of public health employees. Doctor Pastnou says he bears to relation to the case. His aim is not fighting against his co-workers, but exposing flaws in the budget sector.

Stanislau Titovich, the chief medical officer at the Vitebsk polyclinic, said to Pastnou some days ago that he should go to the personnel department in February and took away his employment record book. Pastnou tried to figure out the reason, but the chief medical officer explained the law doesn't oblige the employer to “bow and scrap” to the dismissed employee.