MOUNT VERNON — Four medical doctors, participants in the Open World Program and hosted by the International Visitors Council, visited Knox Community Hospital recently to learn about health care in Knox County.
Drs. Oleg Barba, Veaceslav Batir, Mihai Moldovanu and Valentina Fileva were guests of KCH and visited various departments and met with KCH representatives. Ana Plugaru, Open World Program facilitator, acted as their interpreter, along with Maria Bradacs. The doctors speak Russian and Romanian, but do not speak English.
The Republic of Moldova, in central Europe, was part of the former USSR. It is bordered by the countries of Ukraine and Romania, and is home to some 4 million residents.
“In Moldova, they are health care professionals,” said Plugaru of the visiting doctors. “They wanted to exchange experiences with the health care facilities they are visiting here. They want to form close professional relationships both here and back in Moldova.”
The Open World Program is based at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. It was founded by Congress in 1999 to bring Eurasian professionals and leaders to the United States to experience American politics and civic life. More than 11,000 judges, journalists, media professionals, lawyers, entrepreneurs and educators have taken part in the program.
According to its mission statement, the International Visitors Council, based in Columbus, was founded in 1965 “to build partnerships between Central Ohioans and citizens of other countries that strengthen democratic ideals, encourage economic development and promote cultural understanding through the exchange of knowledge and ideas.”
The OWP sent three groups to the United States in April, said Plugaru. In Washington, the groups toured the city and its landmarks and met members of Congress. IVC hosted the Central Ohio group; the others visited North Carolina and Florida.
In Columbus, the doctors visited the IVC office, the Columbus Department of Health, Mount Carmel Hospital System, the Gerlach Center for Senior Health, Thomas Rardin Family Practice Center, the MaryHaven addiction recovery facility, The Ohio State University, and Nationwide Children’s Hospital and its Center for Child & Family Advocacy. Mount Vernon was the doctors’ only official stop outside Columbus, but they did tour the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center in Cincinnati.
Asked by Plugaru for their impressions of Ohio, the doctors smiled and responded “Great” and “Very nice.”
At KCH, Chief Executive Officer Bruce White, Development Director Carol Garner, the Knox County Health Commissioner Dennis Murray and others told the Moldovan doctors about the hospital and its services.
“According to the information about this hospital, it can be compared to a hospital in Moldova,” said Barba, via Plugaru’s translation. Barba serves as prime deputy director of the National Centre of Health Management at the Moldova Ministry of Health.
The doctors noted that one such Moldovan hospital, in the city of Comrat, provides health care to 73,000 people and has 205 beds. It provides such services as neurology, surgery, children’s healthcare, obstetrics and gynecology, infectious diseases, an emergency room, a family health care center and more.
“In 2002, we were starting to prepare reforms in the health care system and since 2004 we have national medical health insurance for everybody. So now health care quality is changing for the better,” said Barba.
“We think that our national health care insurance is simple, transparent and it works really well. All over the country, it is the same,” said Batir, who is department chief at the health department in the city of Balti.
“Medical institutions have contracts with the national insurance company,” said Plugaru, “for offering health care services for the insured. For example, a hospital gets funding from this national insurance company and also gets funding for services you have to pay for. From this money, the hospital pays staff salaries.”
Asked about doctors’ incomes, Barba replied, “The salary of a doctor, compared to people who work in banks, is lower, but compared to teachers or those in the agricultural sector, it is high. It has been growing in the last five to six years.”
Services not covered under the national insurance include elective procedures such as plastic surgery. Dental care, except for emergency procedures and routine exams, and pharmaceuticals are not covered, but vision care is. Moldova has state-funded dentists, but the many other dentists are considered private practice, as are pharmacies. Both operate under government regulations.
“We’re ready to encourage people to open private hospitals,” said Plugaru. “We have not had those before. We understand that people need lots of money to open a private hospital and run it, and it would take lots of time to get profit from it.”
Asked about her experience of being a female doctor, Fileva, who is coordinator of the Healthy Centre in Comrat, said she had never experienced discrimination or problems during her education and practice.
“Most of our family doctors are women,” she said. “We have very many female physicians.”
Smiling, she added, “Men tend to control everything, like CEOs, and women get the hard work. But our new minister of health, just appointed, is a woman, the first.”
Asked why he became a doctor, Batir explained to Plugaru.
“When he was in the fifth grade, his mom was in one of the republican hospitals. She was given a shot of penicillin, went into anaphylactic shock and almost died,” Plugaru said. “He remembers that really well, and that pushed him. Since then he wanted to become a doctor, although he also wanted to go into the military service. But in Moldova, all our doctors who graduate from medical school are lieutenants in the reserve medical service, part of the Army Reserve. In case of war, he would be head of a reserve medical service.”
The doctors had high praise for the medical facilities they visited in central Ohio, but they also enjoyed learning about American culture and sampling American foods.
“We went to the Longhorn Steak House,” smiled Moldovanu, who is director of the health department in the Moldovan capital city of Chisinau.
“They had steak and they really liked it,” explained Plugaru.
