The city ambulance service, habitually under constant pressure, has for
the past several days been in a mad rush. "Previously we had our hands
full of serious body injuries, now we are being smothered by sharp complications
of chronic kidney, ulcer, and diabetic disorders," The Day was told by
Valery Zboromyrsky, Physician-in-Chief of Kyiv's Ambulance Hospital. "We
attribute this primarily to soaring medication prices. Now most people
cannot afford them and are forced to cut short courses of treatment. Ambulances
bring them here and they beg for a pill or an injection...
"We have always had financial problems, but never as bad as now. The
crisis has already done away with 20-30% of budget subsidies and no one
is talking about additional financing. In other words, we will have to
rely on our resources. And we have none whatsoever. Our hospital is high
on the expense sheet: bullet wounds, poisoning, attempted suicides, and
accidents. Every month we need literally truckloads of transfusion blood
and saline solution, along with about a million disposable syringes
and 11 km of surgical gauze. Treating a single bad injury costs Hr
260 per 24 hours. Now how am I supposed to make it cheaper? Stop treating
or serving meals? And there are sophisticated cases when the costs rise
a hundred times..."
This patient's name is Oleh Karlov and his ward has long turned into
his home. An awkward jump in the water ended in a fractured spinal column.
Complete paralysis. Two years in an iron lung that can be turned off for
20-30 min. only. Yuri Mayorov, his attending physician, considers his patient
a unique case in world medicine. Usually, people with such injuries die
in a month. Oleh hopes to live to see the day when medicine learns to cure
his case. The iron lung he is using is outdated and emits a hum so loud
Oleh can hardly make himself heard or hear others. He sometimes asks to
muffle his ears with pillows. There is more modern equipment, but it costs
$20,000-40,000. And of course, the hospital cannot afford it. Oleh receives
Hr 37 in monthly pensions and his mother had to quit work so she could
stay by his side. She has three children besides Oleh and her husband has
to support the family. The other day word spread that the municipal authorities
were going to give the hospital a present: a shipment of new "Faza-8" iron
lungs of domestic manufacture. The Karlovs were ecstatic: these new machines
were designed to develop disease-stricken lungs and help the patient
breathe on his own. The hospital received ten of them and the number of
patients needing them was far larger. "You see, if Oleh were to be allocated
one of the machines it would mean that no one else would be able to use
it," Yuri Mayorov explains sadly, "because he cannot stay off artificial
breathing for more than half an hour. Of course, I think that my patient
should be given one of the new machines, considering that he is a unique
case, but..."
I saw seven patients in the intensive care unit, among them a girl beaten
half to death in an elevator and a man after a stroke. They told me that
there were times when IC had to accommodate a dozen. Now try to judge who
needs the new iron lungs more. Nataliya Isayenko in charge of IC quickly
stepped from one bed to the next. The hospital was heavily understaffed
and not all still on payroll could endure the daily and nightly rush. At
times one could not find a couple of minutes to have a cup of tea in 12
hours. Physicians came to work here after years of study and practice and
now the Cabinet has resolved to dismiss every 20th specialist on the Kyiv
Ambulance Hospital staff.
Experts predict that ambulance calls will shortly increase 1.5-2 times
as any crisis is accompanied by the sharpening of old ills and a jump in
the suicide and epidemic rate. From now on Kyivites dialing 02 will have
to wait even longer than usual: the ambulance service is being switched
to an "abridged program" following personnel and financial reductions.






