Vytenis Andriukaitis

Andriukaitis' family was deported to Siberia in June 1941.

His father, Alfonsas Andriukaitis and mother Liuda Andriukaitienė, pregnant at the time, together with two small children were deported from Lithuania to Siberia by Soviet Communists in June 1941.

While there, they only had access to Russian literature; Andriukaitis learned Lithuanian from his mother, who would write down Lithuanian fairy tales, which he would later read.

Vytenis Povilas Andriukaitis (born 9 August 1951) is WHO Special Envoy for the European region, the former European Commissioner for Health and Food Safety, a heart surgeon, a co-signatory to the 1990 Act of the Re-Establishment of the State of Lithuania.

In 1954, the family received a permission to relocate to Olyokminsk in continental USSR.

In 1957, they were allowed to return to Lithuania after his mother was awarded a medal of honour for raising five children.

He, his mother and two older brothers were allowed to return to Lithuania in 1958; his father returned in 1959.

The family moved to Kaunas, Lithuania – he, his mother and two brothers, Antanas and Petras, joined later by their father Alfonsas in 1959.

His older brothers were serving in the USSR Army – Šarūnas in Kaliningrad and Remigijus in Vladivostok.

Andriukaitis excelled at school and was awarded a "Gold medal" upon his graduation from Kaunas Middle School in 1969.

It was uncommon to be awarded a medal of achievement without being a member of the "komjaunuoliai" (Young Communists).

After excelling at school, he enrolled at Kaunas Medical Institute, graduating in 1975.

Right after graduation, he enrolled at Kaunas Medicine Institute graduating in 1975.

In 1975 Andriukaitis started his medical internship at Kaunas 3rd Hospital.

Following the internship, he was denied the right to choose the hospital for residency by security services due to his anti-communist political involvement.

He was offered to go to Ignalina, in north-east part of the country, where Andriukaitis spent eight years at Ignalina Central Hospital.

He was under continuous pressure and scrutiny from the government, due to his involvement in underground political resistance movement.

He was a founder of the University of Antanas Strazdelis, an underground "university", where members of the resistance movement studied works of the prohibited authors, exchanged books from personal libraries and practiced a humanist way of life (1975–1982).

The "university" rejected dictatorship, nazism, fascism, autocratic regimes or nationalism and united students by promoting values of democracy, pluralism, multi-party politics, freedom of ideas, philosophy and religion and diversity.

In 1976 Andriukaitis started his career in politics as a member of the underground Social Democrat movement, but later continued his studies by pursuing a degree in history at Vilnius University, graduating in 1984.

In 1976 Andriukaitis started his career in politics as a member of the underground Social Democratic movement, participating in their many activities.

In 1976 Andriukaitis was arrested and questioned by the KGB, and forced by the Soviet government to not leave Ignalina for three years, where he was under supervision by the local KGB office.

Whilst in Ignalina, in 1979 he qualified in general surgery at Vilnius University; in 1980 he qualified in war surgery at Riga Military Hospital, in 1982 in abdominal surgery and in 1983 in trauma and orthopaedics surgery both at Vilnius University.

After being promoted to surgeon (second category) in 1983, and due to a great demand for cardio-surgeons in Vilnius, Andriukaitis was able to relocate there from Ignalina and was appointed a cardiac surgeon at the Cardiac Surgery Centre at the Republican Clinical hospital in Vilnius, Lithuania.

He continued his studies, pursuing a degree in history at Vilnius University, graduating in 1984.

He did not join the Communist party during his university years and was instead a member of the underground Social Democratic movement for independent Lithuania.

In 1987 he qualified in heart and vascular surgery at Moscow Bakulev Cardiovascular Institute and in the same year he took part in the first heart transplantation in the history of Lithuanian medicine.

During 1988–1989 Andriukaitis actively supported the restoration of the LSDP (Social Democratic Party of Lithuania).

As a deputy chairman of LSDP, he pioneered the re-establishment of its steering group, was also a member of the Lithuanian Reform Movement Sąjūdis and participated in the preparation and legalisation of LSDP Lithuanian Movement programmes for elections to the Lithuanian SSR Supreme Council.

During this period he was also a member of the working group for the development of the strategy for LSSR self-sufficiency (in regards to social security, health care reform and public administration).

In 1989 Andriukaitis was appointed a cardiovascular surgeon (first category) and became a member of the Lithuanian Physicians' Association (until 1996) and Lithuanian Cardiologists' Association.

Andriukaitis was elected to the Supreme Council of the Republic of Lithuania, which preceded Seimas (Lithuanian Parliament), in 1990.

In 1990 Andriukaitis was elected a Supreme Soviet Deputy for Lithuanian Republic, a chair he held until 1992.

Andriukaitis was a member of the Lithuanian Parliament for six terms, from 1992 to 2004 and from 2008 to 2012, and was a deputy chairman of its council from 2001 to 2004.

Andriukaitis practiced medicine until 1993, when the new Constitution of Lithuania forbade Members of Parliament to take part in other non-parliamentary activities.

Andriukaitis was an active participant in the anti-Soviet underground movement.

He was also a member of International Physicians' Association during 1998–2004.

He was a health minister of the Republic of Lithuania since December 2012 until the European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker appointed him to serve as an EU Commissioner in November 2014.

After the term as European Commissioner for Health and Food Safety Andriukaitis became WHO Special Envoy for the European region in March 2020.

Vytenis Povilas Andriukaitis was born in Kyusyur, Yakut Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, USSR.