Housing and market wages: how communities engage experts on the grounds

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Cherkassy community decided not to wait for a medical reform, they immediately raised doctors’ salaries to 10,000 hryvnias at the expense of the local budget.

The most important things for motivating professional specialists to work in communities are housing and wages. This was stated by Volodymyr Mitsuk, head of Bilozirsk unified territorial community of Cherkassy region, in the framework of UCMC project “Spokesman of communities” at Ukraine Crisis Media Center. “We have reconstructed housing for doctors. We have prepared 5 apartments ready to take doctors with families, and provide them with housing, so that they could work here. After we prepared the house and showed it on TV, more than 20 people applied within just two weeks.” he said.

The community decided not to wait for a medical reform. They immediately raised doctors’ salaries to 10,000 hryvnias at the expense of the local budget. Doctors are also allowed not to pay for utility services for three years.
The development strategy till 2022 provides creating jobs in Irdyn – one of the villages in the community. “There are 2.5 hectares of peatlands and 2.5 hectares of water bodies, but no one works there. The location is favorable for making investments, developing tourism, growing berries, producing pellets for heating,” believes Mr. Mitsuk. The community also has plots of land that can be developed, given to investors or used for building a production facility. However, they are outside the settlements. “We cannot manage them ourselves, so we are waiting for adoption of the law,” he emphasized.
The most eagerly awaited are the Laws On Voluntary Association of Territorial Communities, Increasing the Scope of Local Government Authority in Land Management and simplification of accession to estate.
One should read the laws
Horror stories about the effects of unification are told by those who do not want to join. People think that they will be deprived of all the powers, and that the village joined will receive no funds from the central locality. “Everything has been stipulated by the law. If it stipulates that 10% should be allocated for the development, they will be allocated. Everyone is afraid that the central locality will take everything.
One should read the law on the unified communities from beginning to the end. Read and calculate what you need,” believes the head of Bilozirsk unified territorial community.