“Recreational Pessimism,” or How Ukrainian Health Centers Are Managing to Survive
For years it has been said that Ukraine has sufficient potential to become a tourist haven. The figures are impressive indeed: vacationing could account for up to 40% of budget revenues. Among the things that could attract prospective tourists to Ukraine are historic sites, ski resorts, medicinal springs, and unique therapeutic mud baths. The stark reality is, however, that the number of visitors to Ukrainian health centers has dropped 2.5 times over the past few years. Also on the decline is the number of special-purpose beds, while medicinal springs are being privatized.
In an interview with The Day Bronislav OMETSYNSKY, advisor to the State Tourist Administration chairman and the former head of the State Committee of Ukraine for Recreation, reflects on the causes behind the stagnation in this country’s health center and resort system and what can be done to improve the situation.
“What is the state of Ukraine’s health resort network today?”
“Ukraine inherited a very good legacy from the USSR: three recreation and physiotherapy research institutes, two university departments dealing with this matter, a wide network of health centers, and state-of-the-art techniques for treating and rehabilitating children, the disabled, tuberculosis patients, and people affected with chronic and occupational diseases, available at health centers and spas. But the old system of funding recreational facilities collapsed in the early 1990s. The only remaining feature of that multi-channel system (budgetary, trade union, industry, and, Communist Party funds) is budgetary funding. In the first years of independence alone, the number of people seeking treatment in sanatoriums dropped 2.5 times, while not more than 25-30% of the available sanatoriums and resorts have been used to good purpose. Although the number of vacationers has been increasing by an annual 15-20% over the past few years, our resources have considerably dwindled. At a time when an outbreak of tuberculosis has been officially recorded in Ukraine, the number of special-purpose beds has drastically fallen because some sanatoriums have been leased out altogether. For example, there are only two tuberculosis sanatoriums for adults left in the Crimea today (The Old Crimea and Dolosy), but we managed to save them only because they are a long way from the seashore. In Alushta, two tuberculosis sanatoriums have been leased to commercial entities. Administrative buildings are the only things from the old structure that have survived.
The story is the same with trade union-run health centers: they are joint-stock companies now. Naturally, Ukrprofzdravnytsia (the trade union company in charge of recreational facilities — Ed.) did not have an alternative. Over the past few years, specialized public sanatoriums have been funded at the 50%-level or less of what is required. Furthermore, each of them has almost as many staff members as patients. Nobody can say to the doctors: work for six months and then do as you please. So the sanatoriums had to learn to survive. Begging from June, they would stop admitting the sick and open the doors to ordinary vacationers, adults, and children, from Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine. Now I realize that it was really crucial to fully commercialize a number of health centers — for some time only. But what actually happened? It goes without saying that the sick receive the best medical treatment in the summertime, i.e., in the most commercially profitable period. The problem is different: even tuberculosis sanatoriums have been taking in vacationers, which is a gross violation of all sanitary and epidemiological guidelines.
“Now it is the right time to do something. The economic situation has improved: the industry is gaining momentum, people have money. It is no secret that the existing health resort structure was established to meet the requirements of the Soviet Union. Therefore, Ukraine could greatly benefit from the current situation: against the backdrop of events in the Caucasus and international terrorism, there is every opportunity to attract more tourists from the former Soviet and other countries.”
“But conditions in Ukrainian sanatoriums are far from comfortable, aren’t they?”
“Over the past few years, some sanatoriums have created good conditions — this applies, above all, to those run by Ukrprofzdravnytsia, the Cabinet’s Property Management Office, and private ones. Unfortunately, I can’t name even one Ministry of Public Health-run sanatorium that would meet modern requirements. Modern conveniences apart, there is another problem: the condition of the grounds and beaches adjacent to sanatoriums. For example, quite a good holiday center, Park Hotel, was built on the outskirts of Simeiz City Park. But when I recently took a stroll through the park, I stumbled across two dead rats, a heap of used syringes, and tons of garbage. We have lost control over the condition of health resort grounds and over the recycling and disposal of household and industrial wastes.
“Beaches are a special problem. They were once the property of rural or municipal communities that just don’t have the money to gentrify recreational areas. There are other hitches, too. For instance, there is a paved beach stretching for several kilometers between Simeiz and Alupka. A boathouse stands right on this concrete and, higher up, a two-story villa. I saw the villa’s owner roll out his jet ski and race undisturbed along the coastal waters, which, of course, did not exactly make the vacationers feel more comfortable. Everything begins with what may appear to be trifles. We do have excellent mineral resources and mud baths. It is not an exaggeration to say that Ukraine combines the advantages of Czech, German, and French health resorts. So we are sitting on this gold mine but we don’t know how to use it. The point is that in the USSR the health resort system was exclusively considered from the social point of view, i.e., the rehabilitation and cure of patients, while the rest of the world looks on it as a super-profitable generator of revenue for the budget.”
“How much could Ukraine cash in on its sanatoriums and health resorts?”
“There’s been no precise assessment so far. But we could equal Thailand and Egypt (where the tourist and recreational spheres account for two-thirds and one- third of budgetary revenues, respectively); that is beyond any doubt. Our physiotherapy and balneology have always been ahead of Western ones because the latter were only interested in commercial gain, while in our country there was a system of state-sponsored research. Besides, do not forget that our previous medical rehabilitation worked for the military-industrial complex: scientists used to develop special systems for cosmonauts, deep-sea divers, etc. Some Ukrainian sanatoriums still use this equipment and techniques. Ukrainian doctors are making successful appearances at various international congresses, and the professional level of our health resort experts is still very high in spite of all difficulties. The only thing that leaves much to be desired in this field is market studies. If they reach the desired level, we will be seeing an influx of investors and then clients. What helped Egypt, Turkey, Morocco, or the Balkan countries make such a rapid breakthrough into the elite tourist market? They all started with the creation of favorable conditions for investors: for example, they would offer them tax relief. While investors were building the facilities, the state was improving roads and communications. It would certainly be wrong to say that Ukraine is doing nothing in the tourist and health resort field. We are managing to ensure an annual 20-30-% growth in the number of vacationers by advertising our resources, participating in exhibitions, and press tours. On the other hand, now that we’ve been given an historic chance — the Orange Revolution was good promotion — the state has drastically cut down on the tourist sector. The new budget gives us only 6 million instead of the 36 million we had in the 2004 budget, a six-fold decrease.”
“Experts claim that Ukraine has lost almost a fifth of its recreational territory due to intensive construction on the sea coast. Is this true?”
“Yes, private cottages and boathouses take up almost a quarter of the Crimea’s recreational territory. A few years ago, when a governmental commission tried to check whether the construction was in line with the law, we could not even get onto the grounds of these cottages. Naturally, the commission issued a very strongly-worded statement, but the matter is still at a dead end.
“In general, there are serious problems with the law in Ukraine. Health resorts are the subject of many documents: the Land Code, the Water Code, nature conservation laws, and the law ‘On Health Resorts.’ There is no crime in this in principle. The trouble is that we don’t have an integrated governmental body to supervise the implementation of all the requirements, for example, about the status of a protected recreational territory (when private construction is banned within a radius of two kilometers), or about the status of waterside properties (structures may be constructed only 200m away from it). The law ‘On Health Resorts’ also distinguishes between resorts on the national and local levels and marks their boundaries and sanitary protection zones, i.e., places with mineral water springs and healing mud baths. And what do we have? A Crimean realty journal has announced the sale of a plot of land with mineral springs. A new thermal spring has been discovered in this country, a Ukrainian version of Karlovy Vary, but it has been private property for several years (this information still has to be checked).”
“To what extent is the distillation of mineral waters controlled in Ukraine?”
“Controls are inadequate. There are very many tiny firms based rather far from springs. Before, a factory would be built right above the spring, and it was simply unprofitable to acquire plain water and use it to dilute the medicinal one. Now, a tank of mineral water and, figuratively speaking, ten tanks of plain spring water are brought to a factory that stands 20 km away from the required source. This is the kind of ‘medicinal water’ we have. The condition of a spring also depends on the way a sanitary area is protected: for example, there should be no farming in this area and the water should be extracted according to certain guidelines. Again, there is no organization today that would supervise all this. Public hygiene agencies sometimes just do not have time to do this, while the once powerful system of state-run standard-observation stations is now unable to exert pressure on firms that distill medicinal water because these firms are no longer state-run.”
