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New veterans' hospital in demand

Defense Ministry's plans for more facilities meet obstacles

By Markéta Hulpachová
Staff Writer, The Prague Post
March 5th, 2008 issue

VLADIMÍR WEISS/THE PRAGUE POST
World War II veteran Emil Macura, 82, recuperates at the Olomouc Military Hospital.
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Olomouc, central Moravia
Three years ago, the Olomouc Military Hospital (VNO) paid the city a symbolic sum for a dilapidated building on the outskirts of its medical complex. Once a stable house for the adjacent St. Joseph monastery, where the main hospital is situated, the 17th-century structure fell into disrepair during the communist regime.
“By 1990, the building was falling apart and waiting for a worthy investor,” said VNO Deputy Medical Director René Dryml. “The floor was rotting, the walls were peeling. There was nothing here but an atrocious mess.”
Before 2005, the building was home to a discount market for housewares and construction materials. However, VNO Director Josef Śváb had a different vision for it — with the help of Defense Ministry funding, he succeeded in transforming the crumbling structure into a long-term care sanatorium for war veterans.
On Feb. 21, the sanatorium officially opened as part of a Defense Ministry project promoting state-endorsed care for war veterans. With 23 beds, it is now the country’s second long-term care facility of its kind, following the Feb. 1 opening of a 26-bed sanatorium at the Central Military Hospital (ÚVN) in Prague.
“Now veterans who are not able to live in typical retirement homes have access to adequate care in both Prague and Moravia,” said Defense Ministry spokesman Miroslav Šindelář.
According to Dryml, the new sanatorium, which cost about 200 million Kč, largely funded by the Defense Ministry, is already in high demand. Weeks before it opened, the VNO received 21 admission applications. “We strove to create a pleasant, comfortable environment for war veterans seeking treatment for long-term illnesses,” he said.
One such patient, 82-year-old Emil Macura from the nearby village of Jivová, was recently admitted to seek treatment for lung disease and a back injury. A decorated former tank crewman who fought alongside British forces on the western front in World War II, Macura said he was happy with the sanatorium's care.
“There wasn’t anything like this under communism,” he said. “Back then, this [type of care] was only granted to a privileged few.”
Equipped with a rehabilitation center, a chapel and a guest house for visiting family, the sanatorium strives to accommodate aging World War II veterans as well as convalescent veterans from more recent conflicts.
According to the Defense Ministry, the military currently registers about 3,500 World War II veterans, and 16,000 veterans of more recent international peacekeeping missions.
In addition to the recently opened sanatoriums for long-term care in Prague and Olomouc, which provided 49 new beds in total, local veterans may also access ambulatory care at the ÚVN in Prague and a veteran care center in Karlovy Vary, west Bohemia.
Although Dryml said these projects were “a step in the right direction,” Deputy Defense Minister František Padělek admits that offering veterans 49 new beds is not enough.
“Yes, there should be more of these centers,” Padělek told the Czech News Agency Feb. 21. “We are looking for more possibilities mainly around Prague, where most of the veterans live.”
Originally, the Defense Ministry had planned to open eight long-term care facilities throughout the country. However, these plans stagnated amid major budgetary cutbacks last year, said ministry spokeswoman Jindřiška Verešová.
Show of gratitude
Despite these setbacks, Defense Minister Vlasta Parkanová continues to list care for war veterans among the ministry’s top priorities, partly because of the wrongs committed by the communist regime.
After returning home at the end of World War II, veterans who, like Macura, fought alongside British or U.S. forces were often persecuted by the Czechoslovak government, which viewed their exposure to Western mentality as harmful to the communist regime. “After the war, the heroes of our liberation should have gotten recognition, love and gratitude,” a 2007 ministry document states. “Instead, the new totalitarianism managed the inconceivable: Instead of gratitude, a trial; instead of an award, imprisonment.”
Although funding is meager, developing programs such as free rehabilitative care, a network of trained advisers who help veterans access state benefits, and plans for additional sanatoriums are signs that the Defense Ministry is inching toward its goal of creating a stronger support system for veterans. “The problem is that many veterans don’t know about the long-term state benefits at their disposal,” said Defense Ministry spokesman Radek Šmerda. “It is necessary for us to act as fast as possible, especially in the case of our aging World War II veterans.”

Markéta Hulpachová can be reached at mhulpachova@praguepost.com


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