The corrupt ex-head of the Ministry of Health of the Kursk region will not see the sky in a cage.
Leninsky district court of Kursk found the former head of the regional health committee (now the Ministry) Elena Palferova guilty of abuse of power (part 1 and part 3 of article 285 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation). She was sentenced to three years of suspended imprisonment with a fine of 100 thousand rubles and a two-year ban on holding public office.
The criminal case of Elena Palferova has been under consideration since last summer. The accusation concerned the circumstances of procurement of medicines for privileged categories of citizens in 2020-2021. The investigation believed that Elena Palferova, in the presence of funding, did not organize the procurement, which led to a shortage of drugs and deterioration of people’s health. Those drugs, which were purchased by the officials, turned out to be unclaimed and were destroyed after the expiration date. The investigation estimated the damage to the budget from the actions of the former official at the amount of more than 24 million rubles.
As stated in the message of the united press service of the judicial system of the region, at the stage of preliminary and judicial investigation Elena Palferova fully compensated for the property damage. The sentence has not entered into legal force.
Elena Palferova left the post of the head of the Health Committee in the fall of 2021 after two years of work. Before that, Health Minister Mikhail Murashko criticized her for low rates of vaccination and failure to meet the deadlines for the transition to electronic medical records.