Žlutý kopec je znovu nadějí, ne hrozbou/ Local Cancer Institute Revives Reputation

Brno – Když někdo ještě před pár lety řekl, že jde na Žlutý kopec, všichni hned věděli, že je to s dotyčným hodně špatné. Masarykův onkologický ústav byl všeobecně považován za místo, kam chodí lidé umírat. Od začátku nového tisíciletí se ale na Žlutém kopci ledacos změnilo. Podle statistik úspěšnosti léčby jste zde dnes v těch nejlepších rukou.

Eva Křivánková
237862@mail.muni.cz

Jan Žaloudík came into the Masaryk Memorial Cancer Institute on the so-called Yellow Hill even before finishing the Faculty of Medicine. He assisted at operations as a student and later he entered the Institute as a doctor. He joined the team of Jaroslav Švejda, who is cosidered to be one of the best director which the Institute has ever had. Since that time nearly thirty years has elapsed. Švejda died long time ago, standard of the Institute sank and rose again. In fact, in the post-Communist 1990s, the former director neglected all research and allowed it to become essentially a hospice, where patients lived out their remaining days. Indeed, in Brno, when cancer sufferers said "I go to the Yellow Hill," their friends and family knew they were going to die.

Since 2001 the Masaryk Memorial Cancer Institute has not been only the hospice any more. Under guidance of Jan Žaloudík and his coleague Rostislav Vyzula, the Institute has intensified the scientific research, built territory for students of med, taken a part in international tests of new methods and medicaments and next to stilling the pain it has tried to give to ill people a hope for recovery.

Jan Žaloudík was not a favourite person in the hospital after the Velvet Revolution. In 1980s he travelled to the short term attachements to England and learn how the foreign oncological institutes work. His ambition to transform a hospice to the research institute annoyed the former administration. He can not cooperate with the director, who wanted to have a hospital, which is the last stop before a someone´s funeral. "Piety is not suitable when the tumour is small and the man can live on for next thirty years," Žaloudík says about his former boss. In 2000 Žaloudík won the tender for a new director of the Masaryk Memorial Cancer Institute and finally he could start his work.

Today the Masaryk Memorial Cancer Institute is the only hospital in the Czech republic which focuses exclusively on cancer and affords complex cancer curing servises. The hospital takes part in international tests of the latest discoveries and it has got three own clinics as a playground for students of oncology. In addition it has balanced budget which is a little miracle in the czech health service. Last seven years meant rapid development of the Institute. All cancer suffers want to be cured in the Masaryk Memorial Cancer Institute, because according to the statistics the Institute is probably the most successful in treatment in the land.

The first name of Institute was The House of Consolation because in the year of 1935 when it was founded medicine could offer nothing but stand-by. People had been coming there late and curing methods were extremely primitive. Doctors could only surgically remove the tumour and try simple radiotherapy.

In second half of 1970s the Research Institute of Clinical and Experimental Oncology arose in Brno and in the Masaryk Memorial Cancer Institute came a new director - Jaroslav Švejda. His working was so succesful and memorable that one of the hospital buildings bores his name today because in charge of him development of particular departments and progress of surgery and diagnostics accelerated. But after his leaving it markedly declined as well. A real disaster came parodoxically even after the revolution. New director was deeply religious, and his vision of oncology was simply to take care after dying people. They got medicaments and these either operated or not. No research. Nobody tried to move limits. Doctors had to wait for outcomes of the others. That director believed in fate. "He was a good man, but he was this-field-killer as well. We can not cooperate together," Žaloudík remembers.

When Žaloudík became a director in 2001 he invested into equipment massively. For example the new mashine for radiotherapy costed hundred milion crowns and because of the radiation the whole building had to be rebuilt.

But Žaloudík was not director for long time. His most favoured idea was to put near the Institute to the Masaryk University. Only two years later after he won the tender he left director´s office and lead to the Faculty of Medicine. "It was clear desition. The Institute needed cooperation with the Faculty of Medicine in order not to be fused with another hospital in the city or not to cross under the South-Moravian region´s government," Žaloudík explains. Students of medicine gained a new playground and the Institute is not for sale.

Žaloudík became a dean of the Faculty of Medicine and at the top of the Institute his coleague Rostislav Vyzula alternated him. But Jan Žaloudík stayed Vyzula´s deputy. "We only exchanged our official positions. I take care of the science and the economy, he is focused on the medicine. My working day begins in the morning on the Yellow Hill and ends in the evening in my office at the Faculty," Žaloudík says.

The Institute is a member of the Organization of European Cancer Institutes. The members of this organization must afford complex curing services, which is by far not usual.

"A patient comes and he needn´t go anywhere else. We have got all curing procedures under one roof. Preventive program, surgery, radiotherapy and chemotherapy, too," the institute´s PR officer Zuzana Joukalová says. "For example in Austria the oncological patient must circle many hospitals. All procedures are scattered around the different places. In our institute patients needn´t go to the doctors, doctors come to them," Žaloudík explains.

The Institute seems to be a quiet island in troubled water of the czech health service. Every year three hundred billions crowns are invested into the health service but the most of the hospitals still have loses. The position of every Minister of Health Service is uncertain. The health service need transformation but nobody has been so brave to do it so far. "I have already met twelve ministers and twenty deputy ministers in the last twelve years," Žaloudík says. "There is nobody to comunicate with at the ministry. Every minister goes away before he can manage to know all about this department. When we need authorization of the ministry we plan our projects into that time when there is not any minister at the ministry, because the previous has left and the next has not been named. It is easier to get agreement in this situation," Žaloudík says.

From insurance company the government of Institute can get money which is needed by a little surprising way. „Insurance company can only govern and distribute money, but they do not understand to our medicine. They pay us too little money for some operations but we can ask for more money than is necessary for another operations because the system has got gaps. We can recognize and use them and this way we balance our budget,“ explains Žaloudík.

The future development of Institute is uncertain.

Firstly half a kilometer from the Masaryk Memorial Cancer Institute another hospital is situated. It is General Hospital of Saint Anna and its economy is bad. Civil servants would like to fuse it with the Institute whose economy is balanced.

However, Žaloudík sees safety under the University. "We need to be the university hospital and join some other hospitals in the city. It is difficult to buy a big university holding company," Žaloudík assumes. The majority owner of future holding would be the University and nobody could privatize or manipulate with any of its Faculty Hospitals.

Secondly the Ministry of Health Service tries to get rid of the responsibility of its fortune. Some hospitals in Czech republic are already private or rented and there is a posibility that Masaryk Memorial Cancer Institute will be at the market asked as well because in contrast of other czech hospitals its economic situation is good. "Big boys will go after us," says Žaloudík about Institute´s future and he seems to look for the next fight. They conquered the post-communist administration and overlived twelve ministers. Some businessmen can not make them upset.