NEWS AND VIEWS: In praise of unsung heroes in Ukraine: health care workers are diamonds in the rough (03/21/04)

NEWS AND VIEWS

In praise of unsung heroes in Ukraine: health care workers are diamonds in the rough

by Alexander Kuzma

The Ukrainian Weekly is lucky to have a veteran correspondent like Roman Woronowycz who has provided insightful coverage and passionate commentaries on events in Ukraine for nearly a decade. His February 29 column ("Instilling self-respect in Ukraine") describes the deplorable conditions in a hospital he visited in Kyiv and offers eloquent testimony to the sad state of health care in many hospitals across Ukraine.

Despite his anger and frustration, Mr. Woronowycz urges his readers in the diaspora not to lose hope in Ukraine's future, as there is a new generation of professionals and service workers who are taking their jobs seriously and learning to provide quality care. Many of these were trained by Western corporations and non-governmental organizations, and they have learned to be responsive to their clients' needs.

The same can be said of a small but growing cadre of doctors and nurses who are determined to replace the squalor and disgrace of the old Soviet medical system with a more humane and professional model of patient care.

There is no question that Ukraine's health care system needs a major overhaul. In 12 years of work with the Children of Chornobyl Relief Fund, I have certainly seen my fair share of hospitals and orphanages that are light-years away from modern medical standards. But, in recent years, my colleagues and I have also met and collaborated with Ukrainian professionals who have inspired us with their competence and creativity, their passion for learning the latest medical advancements and their commitment to their patients' well-being. These unsung heroes are developing and implementing a vision for radical improvements within their institutions.

Given training and new technology, these doctors have begun to make impressive strides in the quality of services they provide.

In Kyiv, it has been a privilege to work with the likes of Dr. Oleh Korneychuk, a young neonatal specialist, and his team at Kyiv Children's Hospital No. 2 who have impressed many visitors from the United States with their skills and devotion. Their neonatal unit has become a training center for promising young doctors from across the country.

In Lutsk, Dr. Valery Rutsky and Dr. Hryhory Vashchylin, the directors of the Volynian Regional Children's Medical Center, have shown tremendous initiative in creating a model diagnostic laboratory, a genetic screening center and a model neonatal intensive care unit. To complement the aid they have received from CCRF, Drs. Rutsky and Vashchylin have reached out to European foundations and to local businesses to help purchase state-of-the-art technology. The hospital has now reduced infant mortality by half while increasing the hospital's caseload of emergency cases and infants with more complex pathologies.

In addition to their own hospital, the doctors at the VRCMC have rehabilitated a local orphanage for handicapped children. In a self-styled program reminiscent of "Habitat for Humanity" hospital staff (including top brass) donated their weekends to drive nails, sand floors and pour a new tar road to the orphan home.

We are all familiar with the stereotype of craven and corrupt Ukrainian doctors looking for bribes and keeping their work schedules to a bare minimum. The diaspora is less familiar with real-life heroes like Dr. Oksana Surtseva in Odesa or Dr. Yarema Voznytsia or Dr. Roma Polishchuk in Lviv, or Dr. Alexander Buyalsky in Dnipropetrovsk, whom we've known to treat large numbers of indigent patients and spend long nights with their patients fighting against all odds to save their lives.

There are entire doctors' brigades from Kyiv, Lviv and Chernihiv that donate their weekends to bring medical services to impoverished families in remote villages. Others volunteer to help patients in the contaminated regions of Polissia on the edges of the official Chornobyl exclusion zone. Their motivation to pursue these volunteer efforts is all the more impressive when we consider the paltry wages they're paid for their regular hospital duties.

The corporate sector, too, is not without its heroes. Volodya Mitin is the Ukrainian director of the New Zealand-based firm NZ Techno, which markets many leading brands of medical technology. As a highly respected medical engineer, Mr. Mitin is always in demand. A tireless worker, he has installed intensive care units all over Ukraine, and he has been known to rise up in the middle of the night and drive halfway across the country as far as Luhansk or Ivano-Frankivsk to repair or recalibrate a sensitive instrument when an infant's life was at stake.

These are people who are redefining Ukraine's health service industry and raising the standard of care for all to emulate. By helping such doctors and volunteer efforts at the grassroots level, the diaspora is not aiding or abetting the oligarchs. Instead, we are empowering the reformers to challenge the oligarchy by showing that life can be very different, and that incompetence, indolence and corruption need not be tolerated.

Many pundits in the diaspora have urged a hands-off, "wait and see" policy, withholding any aid to Ukraine until Ukrainians first "get their act together." More often than not, this attitude rewards the status quo and it punishes the reformers who are desperately seeking societal improvements. The wait-and-see approach betrays a callous disregard for the plight of ordinary Ukrainians who need our help today. It provides a convenient and intellectually lazy smoke screen for the many broken promises to help Ukraine even when the going gets tough.

Mr. Woronowycz's article suggests that it is precisely Western corporate and charitable involvement that can provide alternative models, and make the crucial difference in giving Ukraine's young people hope for meaningful change.

In light of the "brain drain" and the large number of Ukrainian doctors who have emigrated to the West in search of better fortune, we need to reward and support those who have remained - those who have devoted themselves to the nation's future, even while working in conditions and for wages that no Western doctor or consultant could long endure. By providing them with the tools, the training and technology they need, we can encourage Ukraine's health care pioneers to stay the course. We can help instill the self-respect Mr. Woronowycz calls for by rewarding the initiative and vision of those who have proven their commitment to their country and their vocation.

The medical heroes mentioned above are not unique. Ukraine is full of such human diamonds in the rough. It's time for us to publicize their successes and to provide them the hardware they crave to make more miracles happen.

Alexander Kuzma is the executive director of the Children of Chornobyl Relief Fund.

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