Medical system and hospitals in Ukraine

Medicine in Ukraine is very complicated topic, but I'll try to explaine it in simple way. I know that some of my followers are working on some projects about Ukraine, other just are interested because of fun, or want to travel here, so I try to make this article the most interesting for each of you.
And I devide my article into some parts.

Ukraine have free medical system. It means that we don't need to pay for medical services, and we don't need to have medical insurance. Just we pay taxes and part of them goes to medical services. So we like already payed for it. Something similar you can find in Sweden. If you want to compare with Russia, so it already had insurance system, so their system are different from Ukrainian and more similar to USA. It just in case if you want to make a projection from Russian medicine into Ukrainian.

Of course, free medicine is only in paper, because in fact mostly time you need to pay for it. But anyway, not always. Just mostly.

How it looks in real life?
Most of you heard about family doctors - so it's your doctor who you can contact in any cases. We just provide family doctors medicine in Ukraine and it exist just in some region. Maybe in future it will be in whole Ukraine, so I will make another video about it. Not it's only in some region, so I don't focus on it, because I actually don't know how it works.

What we have now?
We have hospitals and we have clinic.
At first about clinic.

Clinics in Ukraine 

We have therapist, who are responsible of some area where you live. If you feel a little bit ill, or need some medical documents, you can go to your therapist. If you have just some flue, he can suggest you medicine that will help. If you have some serious problem, he send you into other specialist: nephrologist, cardiologist and others. Then they will decide what do you need.
If you are very ill, have high temperature (because of flu) and don't want to go to clinic and sit there, you can call to clinic, and your therapist will come to your home and service you at home. It's very popular for children or very old people. because if your kid is ill, he need to sleep more and going to clinic definitely is not the best. The same about old people. But you have right to call for doctor and ask him come to your home.
This services are free. I know that some people give money for their therapist for better service, better attention, but it's your choice. I like my therapist and his attention to me, so I don't see reason to give him money. But there are different people. Maybe in some clinics you really have very stingy doctors, and he even don't speak with you if you don't give him money. But I don't meet them yet, fortunately.
 

State Hospitals in Ukraine

If you are very ill and you need not only some medicine, but real medical help, you need to go to hospital or call ambulance. Sometimes ambulance can come and just give you some injections and then left you at home (for example, if your kid have high temperature, or you have problem with blood pressure and need just some medicine, not long treatment in hospital). it's mostly time also free.
If you really need treatment, you go to hospital.
Well, here tratment so much depends from hospital. A lot of people will tell you that we don't have any free medicine and need to pay for every pill. But I disagree.
Hospitals are finance by local government, so situation there also depends from place where do you live and what is your local government.
It means that officialy it's free. But our government don't have enough money (or maybe not government, just local government, or managament of hospital is bad), so if you need some medicine, but there is no this medicine in hospital, you need to buy it by yourself and sometimes it's very expensive. Also sometimes some hospitals are so poor, so you even need to buy medical gloves and wadding. Also if you need some surgery, you always need to pay for it and give money for doctors that they do this well.
All of this depends on region of Ukraine and managament of hospital.

Now I'm pregnant and visit hospital very often, because it's law that we need to go there every 2 weeks. So I'm tested always for some problems, and I also don't pay for anything. I speak in forums with other pregnant girls from Ukraine, and find that they need to pay for some tests, and pay pretty much at the same time in my city it's free. They explaine me in hospital, that now they have all reagents for some genesis test and that's why I don't need to pay. If other hospitas dont have reagents, this girls must pay for them from their pocket.    

Private Hospitals and Clinics in Ukraine

If you want private and good medical service - you can also go to private hospitals. You pay there for everything and recieve everything what do you want. Personally I can't say that private hospital always are better choice. because they are really expensive but it doesn't mean that their doctors are better. Everything depends on situation. Mostly time they have better equipment for diagnostics. Now I'm pregnant and always go to private ultrasound. Yes, it's expensive, but they take a picture of my little baby, make video of it and tell about everything me and my husband for 30 min. At the same time a lot of girls choose free ultrasound in state hospital. It's for 5 minutes, no pictures, no video.. But it's free. So I'm happy that we have choice!