Most Ukrainians have learned from their own experience that "free medicine is expensive". But it turns out that any citizen can do without any bribes and "charitable contributions", having obtained from the state system of quality and really free medical services.

Kharkov journalist Maya Petrovskaya wrote for the "Observer" about how, with the help of knowledge of laws and perseverance, she received free of charge necessary treatment, for which at first she was going to get at least UAH 10,000.

Further - from the first person.

When in February of this year I told my friends that I planned to go to the hospital for surgery, a friend working as a profile doctor in one of the district polyclinics pressed my lips sympathetically: "Thousand eight are ready. Maybe it will fit ".

Spoiler: not the most simple operation (removal of one of the thyroid glands) in the end cost me 1500 hryvnia, the lion's share of which was "eaten" preliminary tests done to speed up the process in a private diagnostic center. As I understand it now, in theory, you could invest in a much smaller amount, and if you want (or lack of financial opportunities) and do everything for free.

At the entrance to the clinic I was greeted by an announcement with an appeal to pay a donation of 800 or 1000 UAH. The check on the introduction of "charity" was listed in the list of mandatory documents that must be submitted to the admissions department before entering a hospital.

I would sob and be led. If I did not know that the communal apartment belongs to the so-called "priority expenses of the budget". That is, those articles that are financed from the allocated organization of money in the first place - on a par with staff salaries. Did you hear that doctors are delayed salaries? So I have not heard in recent years. However, all budget payments can be tracked in open Internet sources such as eData.

In addition, just a couple of days before I came to stay in the hospital, a regular session of the City Council. At which it was joyfully announced that according to the results of 2016 800 million hryvnias returned to the budget of Kharkov, which are not claimed by the spheres of education and health.

Yes Yes. The city gives money. Straight blows their schools and hospitals - take as much as you need, everything is for you! And we, as it turns out, refuse schools and hospitals. "No, no, we do not need, we have everything".

Not claimed, including medicine, 800 million were divided in no time, at the same session of the City Council. 250 million for repairing the zoo, 200 for the aquarium (in continental Kharkov, yeah), 200 somewhere else. And what about hospitals? For their content, apparently, should not pay the owner and not the balance holder, and patients who have once filled the budget with their taxes.

I once again re-read the announcement, I look up at the girl in the waiting room and I say: "And I will not pay a charitable contribution to the communal".

"Then we can not accept you," she says calmly..

"Then I'm calling the hotline of the Ministry of Health," I tell her and take out the phone.

In response, I hear: "Do not. You can solve this issue with the head physician. Down the corridor to the left and straight ".

To solve my, most likely, non-standard issue was a whole council. The head doctor is a nice young woman. The head of the department is a serious attentive man who looks at me with some pity. And someone else whom I did not identify.

Interested in the reasons for my position. While I'm somewhat worried about telling the council about the session of the City Council, about the zoo instead of hospitals and about the fact that the concept of "charity" can not in principle be measured by fixed amounts, they exchange glances and exchange cues:.

- Look, it's like a stretched string! Like a telegraph pole under tension!.

- How old are you? And three children? You look so young ... This is also a symptom!.

The question is solved within a few minutes.

- Of course, the charitable contribution is a purely voluntary matter! - they assure me and send me back to the reception.