Business news from Ukraine

Experts representing private and public clinics and related businesses have teamed up to develop and launch a program to develop preventive medicine and support the health of Ukrainians in wartime.
As the head of the Health Support Program and GAMA CONSULTING, Adviser of the Russian National Institute for Preventive Medicine Yevhen Shagov said at a press conference in Kyiv, the need to develop the program is caused, in particular, by the needs of wartime medicine. The press conference was attended by experts from Kundiiev Institute of Occupational Health of the National Academy of Medical Sciences of Ukraine, the Oxford Medical clinic (Kyiv), Biotus.ua and the medical online hub DOC.UA, which are members of the initiative working group, which activities are aimed at the development of preventive medicine in Ukraine.
“Education and medicine are under the pressure of martial law and Russian aggression, and this cannot but have consequences. The education system has managed to transform during the pandemic, in healthcare we need to take this experience into account. We already see that war and chronic stress have an extremely negative impact on various aspects of health. All this is happening amid declining wealth of Ukrainians and the fact that a significant part of Ukrainians are abroad, where they often have a language barrier and lack high-quality health insurance to effectively take care of their health,” he said.
According to Shahov, chronic acute stress that a person faces in a war leads to an imbalance in the endocrine system, which causes emotional and physical burnout, decreased performance, and sleep disturbance. Moreover, stress is the cause of immune suppression, exacerbation of chronic diseases, the development of a number of new pathologies, up to oncological diseases. According to Shahov, this can be prevented by an effective and accessible system of preventive medicine: “There is no way to cancel stress, but it is possible to increase the stress resistance of Ukrainians.”
He noted that the goal of the program was to develop an effective “health basket,” which will include, among other things, personally selected vitamins and microelements. Monitoring the health status of patients, taking medications, adjusting all components of the prevention program can be carried out using online tools and distance medicine.
According to Shahov, the development of the program and the “health basket” began even before the war, its creation was announced in 2020 by President Volodymyr Zelensky. At present, its authors have already accumulated a sufficient amount of information about its positive impact on health.
The world’s leading experts in Anti-Age Medicine, Age Management, specialists from private and public medical institutions of our country took part in the work on the program.
According to Deputy Director of Kundiiev Institute of Occupational Health of the National Academy of Medical Sciences of Ukraine Iryna Sysoyenko, the issue of including preventive medicine in the general healthcare system is currently very relevant.
“In the conditions of martial law and the emergency load on the healthcare system, it is especially important to prevent the occurrence of diseases in time. Timely diagnosis allows us to detect the accumulation of heavy metals and harmful substances in the body, and preventive measures will prevent serious diseases in the future,” she said.
Sysoyenko noted that the institute, in particular, has toxicological laboratories and can clearly determine the presence of harmful substances in the human body.
In turn, General Director of the Oxford Medical clinic (Kyiv) Tetiana Shvyriova emphasized that with the start of military aggression, people began to seek medical help not only in urgent and emergency conditions, but also in a state of stress, psychological instability and “misunderstanding what they have to do with their chronic diseases.”
“Some people were cut off from doctors, from pharmacies, but they had to continue to be observed and receive consultations about their health. We see what months of lack of opportunity for people to receive qualified help amid acute stress lead to,” she said.
According to Director of Biotus.ua Dmytro Hrekulov, his company plans to expand the already existing production of Ukrainian vitamin drugs based on the recommendations developed by the project experts.
According to Olena Hrytsai, head of medical booking at DOC.UA, it will be possible to get recommendations and become a member of the program using the DOC.UA medical online hub platform.
“Now DOC.UA receives about 5 million requests from patients per month, and 40% of them are related to stress management, so the initiative is very relevant,” Hrytsai said.