Nothing is impossible: how a Ukrainian woman opened a medical center in America

Maria Figlus is 95 years old; she came to the USA from a refugee camp in Austria 72 years ago. All this time she was treated by American doctors, but as soon as she found out that a hospital appeared in the city where they speak Ukrainian, she immediately moved there. What is this center and who opened it, says the video VOA.

What Maria likes the most is that the Family Medicine Center takes care of disease prevention.

“If it is possible to prevent a disease, they do it here,” Maria notes. “Often in American hospitals they wait until a person is already sick, and only then they help.”

The family health center in the town of Arvada (Colorado) is the idea of ​​Elena Titarenko. She immigrated to the States in 2000. She studied to become a primary care specialist for seven years and then began her medical career.

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“I saw that each patient in the clinic is individual. This is a person whose health I should have a holistic understanding of. Therefore, with an education in family medicine, I decided to open a clinic,” says Elena.

Elena opened the hospital together with her colleague, Danny Wexler.

“I have 20 years of experience in medicine. I worked in military intensive care, and in emergency medicine, and in pediatric surgery,” says Wexler.

Since its opening, about a thousand patients have enrolled in the Family Medicine Center. These are mainly immigrants from Ukraine and other Eastern European countries.

Among Elena's clients is the Olympic medalist in Atlanta and Sydney, former gymnast Alexander Svetlichny. He turned to the center when he fell ill with COVID-19.

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“When I turned to Elena, she determined what to do with me and my wife. And literally in 2 weeks we recovered,” said Alexander.

There is medical insurance in the USA, but Elena has a system of discounts for patients who are not insured. The cost depends on the disease and the time spent on a particular patient. A visit without insurance will cost $ 150.

“I don’t want money to become an obstacle to providing care to a patient, so if they come to us and say that there is no way to pay, we will still never refuse,” explains Elena.

At first, according to her, she was worried about how she would be able to attract clients to her center, because each insured person already has his own family doctor. That is, to begin with, it was necessary to convince the patients that they would be better at the Family Medicine Center.

Elena says that she knows each of her patients, calls everyone if necessary, takes care of everyone personally. And this approach worked.

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