By Natalia Dymnich

Ukraine’s healthcare system has shown a remarkable resilience in the wake of growing Russian attacks on hospitals over the past three years with private investments now attracting top-level doctors.

Private medical centers that have become success stories are now providing medical services not only to Ukrainians, but also to foreigners who are attracted by low cost and high quality.

Med-Atlant, a medical and diagnostic center based in the city of Ivano-Frankivsk, is a good example. Opened 14 years ago center has now become one of the largest such facilities in Ukraine. Among other things, the center now operates the first private maternity hospital in western Ukraine.

Vitaly Monastyrsky, the head of Med-Atlant, is the engine behind the center’s success.

“It was difficult. We had no investors at that time,” Monastyrsky said in an interview. “But there was a desire and faith.”

Opening the healthcare center in Ukraine may be difficult, but sustaining its operation during the full-scale war with Russia is even more challenging. Med-Atlant has successfully navigated both.

The World Health Organization (WHO) said August 2024 that it has confirmed 1,940 attacks on healthcare sector in Ukraine since the war with Russia began in February 2022. This is the highest number of attacks the WHO has ever recorded in any humanitarian emergency to date, according to the agency.

During the war, 86% of these attacks by Russia targeted the healthcare facilities, usually with heavy weapons, according to the WHO. The agency said attacks on health facilities have "intensified significantly" since December 2023 and are now occurring nearly every day.

HEALTHY SPINE

To start his Med-Atlant operation, Monastyrsky rented a room to launch a healthy spine clinic. Two neurologists, at first two nurses and massage therapists worked there.

“Later, we took out a loan to purchase a room for a medical center. At that moment, I clearly understood that we needed to expand, partially retrain and add new areas of activity,” Monastyrsky said. “Then we decided to add gynecology to the medical services first, because we already had some practical experience in running a gynecological office.”

To support the medical center’s expansion Monastyrsky hired two oncologists, Stepan Dolyk and Pavlo Dolyk, a father and son, to run the cancer treatment operation at Med-Atlant.

Stepan Dolyk is a well-known doctor in Ukraine, he helped many women recover from cancer. He also introduced many innovations as an onco-gynecologist to prevent and treat cancer in Ukraine. His son Pavlo is a wonderful doctor and a virtuoso surgeon.

“Why do people go to Med-Atlant for treatment? People come to get an appointment with a specialist, a professional,” Stepan Dolyk said. “If the manager sees it correctly – that’s half the success. And the second half is all about providing good conditions for professionals.”

To give a doctor the opportunity to develop, the opportunity to move forward – and these are the latest technologies. To provide the best equipment in the region, to ensure that the patient stays in the most comfortable condition.

Pavlo Dolyk, who performs complex surgeries at the center, started his work at the clinic 10 years ago. “Back then, the clinic was different – smaller. We started with small operations, grew together and matured into such a large practice,” Pavlo Dolyk said.

“Each person, when looking for a doctor, is guided by the professionalism of the doctor, often patients come by the doctor's name, by the reputation of the clinic in the disease or prevention - everyone has their own guidelines,” Pavlo Dolyk said.

“Most patients are operated on here with complex cases that other doctors refuse to treat or send to us,” he said. “We have more complex surgery.”

‘BEST DOCTORS’

Monastyrsky is super happy that Med-Atlant was able to attract top talent, Stepan and Pavlo Dolyk, whom he considers among the top 10 best doctors in the nation.

“It was important for us to attract and retain such specialists in our team,” Monastyrsky said. “Patients trusted and continue to trust the authority and professionalism of Pavlo Dolyk and Stepan Dolyk, and this was also an additional impetus for our strong establishment in the field of surgical oncogynecology.”

“People deserve to be treated with good equipment, and doctors deserve to work on good equipment,” Monastyrsky said. “I am for doctors earning decently, and patients to be satisfied with the service and benefits. If these two links are satisfied, then I, as a manager, will also be satisfied.”

“Our clinic is always for such an approach, where medical staff comes first, because people are the most important thing we have,” he said. “This approach may seem overly altruistic to you, but I am for the fact that it is better to do it in small steps, but qualitatively, than immediately and poorly.”

In 2024, according to the decision of the accreditation commission, Med-Atlant was assigned a higher category. “We are currently actively working on rebranding, because we understand how important it is to keep up with the times in all plans,” Monastyrsky said.

“Our ambitions are always maximum, so even before the war we started designing, and already during the war we started building a private maternity hospital,” Monastyrsky said. “Before the war we set a budget for the project of about $15 million, but prices have increased significantly since then.”

“Despite all the economic complications and obstacles, as well as with great faith in the victory and development of our state, we want to be a part of this development, so we did not stop construction, and now we have already started internal, finishing work,” Monastyrsky said.

“These are difficult times for our state and more than ever we need to be able to join forces to achieve a common goal - a decent life for every Ukrainian, he said. “We have joined forces with two Ukrainian companies that have become investors in our Maternity Hospital project. We plan to open in the 3rd-4th quarter of 2025.

Since Med-Atlant has managed to build a fairly large medical center, in addition to the maternity ward, there will also be a surgery department with three operating rooms, which will allow us to expand the areas of surgical care and reach a new level.

Also, the center will have a diagnostic department with an MRI, CT, mammogram and X-ray machine to ensure a full cycle of patient examination within one facility.

“We have a very professional team. I always wanted to have a team from which you can draw not only professionalism, but also human qualities,” Monastyrsky said.

MATERNITY HOSPITAL

As a father of three, Monastyrsky knows exactly what the problem with underfunded state-run maternity hospitals in Ukraine was. “I ran to pharmacies, bought medicines and everything necessary, because, unfortunately, there is no sufficient provision in state medicine,” he said.

“The birth of a child is an exciting stage in life, which is why we are building the first private maternity hospital in western Ukraine. We want parents to pay for their stay in our maternity hospital and no longer worry about anything, we want them to be able to enjoy the first moments of parenthood to the fullest,” Monastyrsky said.

Before the war, women in labor from western regions of Ukraine went to give birth in private maternity hospitals in the center and eastern Ukraine, where private investments in healthcare were significant. Poland was another destination given the proximity to the border.

By launching the state-of-the-art maternity hospital in Ukraine, Med-Atlant hopes to capture that business by providing higher standard medical services. Also, the lower cost may attract women from European countries and perhaps ever from the U.S.

“Before building a maternity hospital, we calculated that in about 10 years, approximately 15-20 percent of our clients will be attracted through medical tourism. The advantage for patients from abroad will be a lower cost of service at an identical or even better level of its provision, which will save them money in insurance packages,” Monastyrsky said.

“That is why we want to develop our clinic to such a scale that we can confidently enter the international market,” he said. “We plan to open medical hubs in other countries, primarily for our compatriots living abroad.”

In the new building that we are building, Med-Atlant will have every cycle of medical services that will be there, for example - if there is childbirth, then there is also a reproductive center to do, etc. “We will try to ensure the maximum level of customer comfort at every step to recovery,” he said.

ONCOLOGY CLINIC

Years ago, a complex surgery like what Med-Atlant doctors perform at its facilities, would have taken patient at least seven days to fully recover in Ukraine. But the new technology in anesthesiology and laparoscopy to treat all types of cancer, at Med-Atlant this recovery time has been reduced to between three and five days, while 85 percent is a one-day surgery.

“We are the only ones in Ukraine who have a 3D 4K camera with SD, which provides volumetric vision. We do surgeries wearing special glasses. This allows us to remove only contrasted nodes where there are metastases, which ensures sparing surgery, and as a result - a much easier post-surgery period, considering both anesthesia and laparoscopy,” Stepan Dolyk said. “They recover quickly, do not cause major surgical or anesthetic trauma.”

Pavlo Dolyk said: “Some of the patients do not have long time to wait for the surgery. Moreover, oncology cannot be postponed in time. Therefore, we cannot afford to go on vacation for more than a week or two, because we cannot postpone patients for later.

“A cancer patient cannot be operated on in a month. He wants to see you specifically, and knows that he trusts only you and will not go to anyone else. You understand that the responsibility is on you. If you do not do the surgery now, but in a month, then everything that may happens in a month will be on your conscience,” Pavlo Dolyk said.

The general principles of surgery are the same everywhere. In Europe, America or Japan, the standards are the same or very similar. The operation must be performed canonically, according to standards.

"We constantly communicate with colleagues from different countries, see their surgery. And many colleagues from other countries evaluate us when their patients are operated on here and return back home. There is a lot of feedback in this regard,” Pavlo Dolyk said. “And we understand that we are developing correctly.”

Many of Med-Atlant patients were operated on after unsuccessful operations abroad - in Poland, England, the Czech Republic, Italy, Spain, Portugal. There are cases when patients had medical insurance abroad but still decided to have surgery at Med-Atlant, along with other medical procedures.

Abroad, there may be better technical examination capabilities, due to the fact that those governments financially support preventive examinations, there are various programs where the state takes care of early detection of illnesses.

Therefore, they do not allow the worst stages of cancer to develop before the treatment begins. The Ukrainian government does not have the opportunity to provide cancer patients with full medical care.

The incidence of cancer depends on race, age, and living conditions of a person. “We predict that over time, more “advanced forms” of cancer will be detected in Ukraine - that is, those that are detected late,” he said. “The war, Covid - and, accordingly, late detection, because women do not pay attention to their health.”

YOUTUBE: ‘LIVE SURGERY’

Med-Atlant has also been posting content on YouTube providing much needed consultations and guidance to those who have been specifically seeking information on such complex surgeries.

Before the war, many people watched Russian-speaking doctors – from the countries of the Soviet space, from Russia. And when the great war began, Med-Atlant launched its own project.

“You can watch our videos on general surgical aspects of various topics for free – gynecological, oncogynecological, urogynecological,” Pavlo Dolyk said. These videos are called “Live Surgery”.

“We want to give other doctors the opportunity to develop in an accessible way and make our Ukrainian broadcast more popular,” Pavlo Dolyk said.

In November 2024, an international offline conference was held in the Carpathians. “We performed operations live, during which participants could ask questions or express their opinions on certain methods of surgical intervention,” Pavlo Dolyk said.

PRICING POLICY

The sound pricing policy is expected to play a significant role in attracting patients to Med-Atlant.

“Many Ukrainians now live abroad. And there the prices are much higher: dysplasia, for example, has been once treated in the U.S. for $5,000, and here we can do the same treatment for $50,” Stepan Dolyk said. “Also, we have surgery in one day: a woman had surgery, and the next day she goes home. This is what patients like.”

Meanwhile, among the hurdles is the cost of medical equipment that usually is higher in Ukraine due to the need to import and go through more difficult logistics channels.

“All medical equipment in Ukraine is more expensive than abroad. Before the war, we were at a conference abroad. There was an exhibition there. You approach the equipment of a German or American company, ask the price, they tell you the price, and then ask where we are from. Having heard the answer, they say to contact their representative in Eastern Europe. We contact them and it appears the price of his equipment is three times higher.”

Four years ago, there were only two MRIs in the city of Ivano-Frankivsk, and only three PET-CTs in the entire of Ukraine. These are the main pieces of equipment for examination of cancer patients.

Back in 2015, Monastyrsky and his wife traveled to America to buy the first ultrasound machine from there, for high-quality examination of clients. He officially imported this equipment and with customs clearance it cost him $50,000. At that time, a similar equipment in Ukraine would cost $135,000.

“Not everyone could afford to buy equipment at such price, including us. Therefore, we had to look for ways to make the same quality, but for less money,” Monastyrsky said.

The pricing policy of Med-Atlant allows the medical center to compete with similar centers in the capital of Kyiv. For example, Med-Atlant charges 400 hryvnias, or $10, per ultrasound examination, while similar procedure in Kyiv will cost a patient 1,000 hryvnias, or $25.

There are even free options for poor patients that can be paid for by donors. Six months ago, Med-Atlant organized a charitable foundation "HEALTHY YOU" designed to help people with cancer who have financial problems - we will treat them for free.

“Perhaps there will be people who want to donate. Also, as a team, we regularly invest our funds in the fund's account to ensure its continuous activity,” Monastyrsky said.

HEALTHY LIFESTYLE

With all the high-tech medical equipment and top doctors, Med-Atlant will do its best to make sure that patients are paying more attention to having a healthy lifestyle.

“We are trying to change the way society thinks about medicine and health,” Monastyrsky said. “We start with ourselves, with the team: someone goes to the gym, someone runs. Many people, looking at a healthy example, are inspired and implement self-care as a way of life. We have a large staff of employees, we deliberately recruited a larger staff so that employees have more days off, we try to ensure a schedule every other day to avoid burnout.”

“Every Sunday I would often text my staff in a group chat: ‘Hey, enough sleep, you lazy people. I’ve already run 20 kilometers,’ thus trying to cheer them up in a humorous way and inspire them to do sports,” Monastyrsky said.

“And our employees respond: they throw in their reels or stories, showing how they walk around the lake, ride a bike or run,” Monastyrsky said. “We always emphasize in our social media posts that it's better to come and get checked on time and prevent the illness rather than to treat it later.”

Photo: Stepan Dolyk and Pavlo Dolyk, the father and son, are the leading cancer treatment doctors at Med-Atlant. The center has assembled one of the best teams of doctors in the field of onco-gynecology in Ukraine.