By Nina SOTNYK, The Day
The beginning of this year's vacation season is very passive. The reason,
of course, is universal: a lack of money. "To pay for a more or less decent
vacation with our agency one has to spend at least UAH 1500-2000 per person.
The cost of a family vacation rises according to the number of a family
members," the director of Kuriya Tourist Agency Dmytro Dymytrov told Maryna
PYROZHUK of the Center for Journalistic Research. According to Mr.
Dymytrov, the forecasts for children's health-improvement season are even
grimmer. "Parents have to put together a whole pile of documents. We in
turn must demand from the parents various documents and all kinds of permissions.
This complicates our work, and so we are not interested in doing it," Mr.
Dymytrov says.
On June 2, when the first groups of children left for vacations, Leonid
Kuchma signed an instruction On Organizing Children's Summer Vacations
and Health Improvement. The President's press service declared that the
order was supposed to activate the greatest possible number of child health-improvement
institutions, to use their resources rationally, and to provide high-quality
service and food for children.
"The state's number one concern is the organization of health improvement
for the socially underprivileged: orphans, children deprived of parental
care, children from poor and large families, children disposed to delinquency,
children living under extremely complicated conditions, and the victims
of Chornobyl accident," the State Committee on the Family and Youth press
service stated.
Prosecutors have a different perspective. "Because of lack of appropriate
supervision by central and local executive bodies over the organization
of health improvement, children are restricted in their rights to health
protection and rest. As a result of this, last year about 3 million children
went to health camps, only 22.7%. The number of children treated in Vinnytsia
oblast declined by 1500, and by 3000 and 12,000 in Cherkasy and Chernihiv
oblasts respectively," Natalia Shestakova, department head for the observance
of laws on children's rights in Prosecutor General's office told The
Day. "The main principle of state policy in the sphere of child health
protection is being violated: improving the medical and social protection
of the most vulnerable categories of children. For example, about 4500
disabled children are registered in health-protection institutions of Cherkasy
region. Almost 1500 of them need sanitarium treatment. But last year only
848 disabled children went to sanitariums. The money allocated is spent
for other things, and places for the least protected children are given
children from rich families."
Yet the main problem, which forces health-improvement institutions to
save on high-quality food, is the constant reduction of outlays for child
health improvement. This year oblast expenditures on child health programs
were reduced by 40%, though the number of children who need summer treatment
rose 20%.
Clearly, orders and instructions will not make children healthier. They
will impact little on how children actually spend their summer vacations.







