The positive side of the Ukrainian medical system is that it is not necessary to have expensive insurance to get an ambulance or have a doctor come to your home, make a diagnosis and write a prescription or a sick-leave certificate.

On the contrary, if you don't prepay your medical treatment, you can't demand quality service. Some doctors are simply incompetent, whether because they bought their way though health care university or another reason. But they still have their jobs because of experience or connections.

But even if you do go to a recommended doctor, he or she may not have the necessary medicine, forcing a trip to a drugstore. Hence, in many clinics and hospitals, the equipment is old and outdated. Private clinics in Kyiv have the latest equipment. There is a common, and not completely groundless, fear that every doctor in such a clinic will do his or her best to prescribe you as many procedures as possible, to keep getting money from you until you run dry. It's also true that getting treatments from such clinics is way more expensive then slipping modest bribes to your common state-employed doctor. A one-time consultation of a regular therapist at such a place may have a price for you in more than Hr 200, and it's easy to imagine how much the more complex and serious things will run you there.

As they say, the wolf is never as frightful as it is painted and private clinics are different. Your experience with some of those really can be positive.