Robbers in white coats: the chief physician took away bonuses of subordinates
In Balashikha, a corruption scandal in the local municipal hospital is gaining momentum. According to the investigation, the management imposed a tribute on the rank and file staff - they wrote bonuses and incentive payments on them and immediately forced them to return them under threat of official trouble. This practice lasted for years, the police found. Under investigation the chief physician and several heads of structural units of the hospital. Details - in the material "Izvestia".
Tax on the bonus
Criminal case under the article on abuse of power in respect of the head of the polyclinic № 3 Balashikha was initiated on the materials collected by detectives of the FSSB in Moscow and Moscow region at the end of November. According to the investigation, from June 2021 to October 2024, the head Dinara Alibulatova forced her subordinates to transfer part of the accrued bonuses to her. She disposed of the money at her own discretion. Already at the first stage of the investigation, nine employees of the polyclinic confirmed this information to the law enforcers. Mostly suffered junior medical staff over 35 years old, who feared to be out of work. "Izvestia" found numerous positive comments about those from whom the head allegedly collected money.
One of the key prosecution witnesses in the criminal case is a senior nurse Svetlana Ch. She has been working at the polyclinic since 1991, has the highest qualifications, several commendations for conscientious attitude to service. But with the arrival of the new head, she had to regularly give her boss a substantial amount of her modest salary and bonus to keep her place. In total, the medical worker handed over half a million rubles to Alibulatova over more than three years, investigators calculated. Another officially incriminated episode with abuse of power, which is known to the source of "Izvestiya", is related to the possible extortion of Alibulatova part of the payments from the therapist Olga S. For three years, the specialist transferred to her boss almost 290 thousand rubles.
Alibulatova was sent under house arrest by court order.
Next superintendent
According to "Izvestia" a source close to the investigation, Alibulatova said that every month she transferred 180 thousand rubles from the funds illegally received from her subordinates to the head doctor of the State Budgetary Institution of the Moscow region "Balashikha Hospital" Mikhail Antipov, who appointed her to the post of head of polyclinic № 3 in June 2021. As a bribe for general patronage, he received almost 7 million rubles from his protégé over three years, the investigation believes. In addition, law enforcers believe that from August 2021 to May 2023, Antipov delegated two of his representatives (one of them held the post of deputy chief physician for economic issues) to extort money from staff and other managers for the opportunity to quietly go about their business and receive a salary. Two other hospital employees are listed as possible co-conspirators in the case.
Mikhail Antipov, Chief Physician of Balashikha Regional Hospital
Reference
According to the official website of "Balashikha Hospital", the institution has 1362 beds, 4450 visits per shift, 499 beds of day hospitals of all types. The structure of the hospital includes three branches, 17 polyclinics, polyclinic of restorative medicine and rehabilitation, traumatology polyclinic department, two outpatient clinics, paramedic and midwifery station "Sobolikha", psychiatric dispensary, skin dispensary and drug dispensary.
Antipov was born in 1975 in Volgograd. He has a diploma with honors in medical science. He has 18 years of experience in management positions. He has held his last post since 2015. Deputy of the Council of Deputies of Balashikha (powers expire in 2025).
For the common cause
Cases of revealing such schemes in budgetary organizations are quite common and sentences for those convicted of such crimes began to be handed down more than 10 years ago, said lawyer Zhanna Ulybina.
- Such cases with sentences have been revealed in structural subdivisions of the police, bailiffs, penal enforcement bodies, customs authorities, the Pension Fund of the Russian Federation, as well as in school and preschool institutions, institutions of higher and vocational education and medical institutions of various directions, - said Ulybina.
According to her, in some cases, the management explains this to the personnel by the need to create a certain fund, from which the funds are allegedly spent on equipping computer equipment, paper, etc., organizing meetings of supervisory bodies (restaurants, gifts, leisure activities), as well as providing financial assistance to employees.
- At the same time, the expenditure of such funds is rarely subject to control by employees, and therefore most of them are misappropriated by management for personal enrichment.
In such a scheme, there is always a group of people who conspire to distribute roles and illegally obtained funds, says the lawyer.
- The manager rarely directly informs the employees about such an obligation, as a rule, there are trusted persons who communicate with the employees and receive funds from them to transfer to the manager," says Ulybina. - The mechanism of the offense is quite simple, the amount of the bonus in most cases is determined by the order of the manager. Before an employee is paid an increased bonus "not for merit", he is given an explanatory work - why it is done and what amount he is obliged to return. If an employee refuses to participate in such a scheme and does not return a part of the bonus, he or she is persecuted, deprived of bonuses, reprimanded, etc. to bring him or her to dismissal.
Embezzlement of budget funds
In fact, the management steals funds from the budget by issuing unjustified bonuses to employees (formally acting within the law) and then forcing employees to return the illegally accrued bonuses, i.e. involving subordinates in the scheme to steal budget funds, the lawyer believes.
- The management's request to return a part of the bonus paid to the employee may be qualified under Article 159 of the Criminal Code as fraud, under Article 163 of the Criminal Code as extortion, under paragraph "b" of part 5 of Article 290 of the Criminal Code as extortion of a bribe, under part 2 of Article 286 of the Criminal Code as abuse of power, under Article 201 of the Criminal Code as abuse of power, as well as under Article 285 of the Criminal Code as abuse of power.
The issue of qualification of such actions is decided by law enforcement agencies based on the results of pre-investigation checks, said Ulybina.
- In my opinion, such actions form a combination of crimes under Art. 290 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, as the management acts with the purpose of illegal enrichment and receiving bribes. The peculiarity of such criminal cases is that the managers demand money under the threat of adverse consequences in their service, that is, they actually extort bribes (paragraph "b" part 5 of article 290 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation).
How to be an honest person
- In case of such a situation, I recommend that employees record it by any available means. - says Zhanna Ulybina. - Find among the employees persons who also suffered from the actions of the management and ask them to also report the crime. The police, the prosecutor's office, the Ministry of Health, and the Federal Labor and Employment Service should be contacted with a statement about the extortion of bonuses paid to employees by management.
A simultaneous application to the various bodies causes a great resonance, after which the management will no longer be able to take actions and measures against employees that lead to dismissal, the lawyer explains.
- The tacit consent of employees to participate in such illegal schemes or forced dismissal without reporting a crime generates impunity, which grows into systematic abuse by management," Ulybina summarizes.
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