Volyn initiative shows potential for health care advances (03/08/98)

Volyn initiative shows potential for health care advances

LUTSK - The oblast of Volyn, in the northwestern corner of Ukraine has long been known as a center of progressive thought and resistance to oppression. It was the home of the revolutionary poetess Lesia Ukrainka and the reputed birthplace of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) during the second world war.

With the restoration of Ukrainian independence in the 1990s, Volyn oblast and its capital city of Lutsk, were often overlooked in the distribution of Western aid. Volyn has suffered much of the same severe economic decline as other regions of Ukraine. In many cases, its condition is even more worrisome. With an absence of heavy industry or marketable cash crops, the regional government has found it even more difficult to attract Western investment.

Despite all these hardships, the people of Volyn (known as "Volyniaky") have maintained a strong sense of determination and a bold vision for their future. Even to the casual observer, they seem more upbeat in the face of adversity than their counterparts in other oblasts. Nowhere is this independent, bullish spirit more evident than at the Volyn Unified Regional Pediatric Center in Lutsk. Under the leadership of Dr. Hryhoriy Vashchylin, a transplanted native of the Donbas and Dr. Volodymyr Seliouk, a young surgeon and native Volyniak, the hospital staff has developed an innovative approach to the region's health care crisis. Rather than wait for foreign aid or increased support from the Ministery of Health, the hospital administrators appealed to the neighboring business community to help modernize the children's hospital. The modernization project was billed as a matter of civic pride and as a long-term investment in the future of the oblast. The appeal worked.

During the early months of 1997, forward-thinking business leaders pooled their resources and surveyed the potential for inkind or bartered services. On weekends, brigades of volunteers, including prosperous entrepreneurs, worked together with hospital staff donating free overtime hours to refurbish several wards with improved lighting, bright-colored paint, remodeled floors, artistic murals and paneling. The goal was to create a more vibrant therapeutic climate so that both children coming for treatment and their parents could be imbued with a sense of hope and confidence that the child's disease can be cured. As one doctor described it, "It's important that children feel good about entering the hospital. This should be a place of healing and care, not of doom and gloom."

An aggressive fundraising drive enabled the hospital to replace its rickety emergency vehicle with a modern ambulance, which was funded in part by a local association of the disabled, "Hromada Invalidiv." The new van is equipped with excellent suspension and essential supplies that enable doctors to treat infants and young children while en route from remote villages, even across poor road surfaces.

The Lutsk medical center unified health care services with other children's hospitals across the oblast, to avoid duplication of efforts and to develop a regional strategic plan for improving children's health. Instead of competing for scarce resources, the center sought more efficient techniques of pooling and streamlining services to save the greatest number of children's lives. In sharp contrast to other Soviet-built centers, where children are segregated in separate buildings, the Lutsk hospital built tunnels and corridors under the facility so that children would not be exposed to the elements as they were being transported for diagnostic screenings, surgery or emergency care.

Over the past year, the self-help spirit of the Volynian pediatric center has attracted the attention of patrons. Dr. Tatiana Stasiuk-Vyhovska, the hospital's leading young neonatologist was one of 60 Ukrainian physicians invited to travel to Edmonton, Alberta, for an intensive training program under the auspices of the "Osvita Foundation" established by Canadians Dr. Ihor and Orest Hayuk. Dr. Vyhovska has since returned and shared her skills with her colleagues, especially in the area of infant respiratory distress and resuscitation, a key factor in curbing high infant mortality in Ukraine.

This 400-bed facility serves as the primary outreach site and diagnostic center for thousands of children from rural areas of eastern Volyn that were contaminated by fallout from the Chornobyl nuclear disaster. To bolster the hospital's technical capabilities, the New Jersey-based Children of Chornobyl Relief Fund delivered incubators, a neonatal respirator and other critical supplies valued at more than $100,000, to improve the chances of survival for preemies and newborns with various life-threatening conditions. This technology was delivered in November as part of CCRF's 19th airlift coordinated with the visit to Western Ukraine of First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton. The Lutsk hospital was specifically targeted as a center that shows great promise in its ability to achieve rapid and dramatic improvements in the quality of care provided. CCRF's initiative in Lutsk was facilitated by Volodymyr and Oksana Bakum of Highland, N.Y. who first introduced the fund to the hospital administration.

During a tour of the hospital's children's wards, CCRF observers and a television news team from Connecticut were introduced to numerous children who had undergone successful surgeries for complex birth defects, immune deficiencies and blood disorders, some of which were attributed to latent radiation exposure. The hospital is the only one in the entire province that provides regular screenings for children to measure their internal radiation dose.

Beyond the recent aid from North America, the Volyn hospital has also obtained a Siemens ultrasound machine from Germany and a used incubator from Sweden. According to hospital director Dr. Vashchyn and based on an independent inventory by U.S. monitors, the hospital is still in dire need of such basic supplies as butterfly catheters, injectible antibiotics, sutures and syringes appropriate for small children.

According to one visiting American, "This is living proof of how much good can come from a strategic infusion of medical aid when the recipient institution is staffed by an energetic, young, talented staff that has developed a real vision for its institution's future."

To support the Volyn Unified Regional Pediatric Center, readers are urged to write to CCRF, 272 Old Short Hills Road, Short Hills, NJ 07078. Inquiries may also be e-mailed to info@ccrf-iccf.org. Gifts may be earmarked for the "CCRF - Lutsk Project." All donations are fully tax-deductible.