The development of even the most promising amalgamated hromada is impossible without involvement of specialists, as teachers and doctors are not too eager to work in the rayon centres or villages.

Last year a comprehensive “Housing” programme, envisaging the purchase of service housing for specialists over 2017-2018, was adopted in the Hlobynska hromada. And at the beginning of this year, hromada has not only introduced a substantial additional financial motivation to Lyudmyla Batchenko, young pediatrician of the Primary Healthcare Centre in the Hlobyne Rayon (almost 150 percent of supplement to the salary), but also provided her with service housing – a one-room apartment.

“Provision of housing to doctors is a good tradition in the AHs of the Poltava Oblast,” said Iryna Balybina, Director of the Poltava Local Government Development Centre, established with the support of the U-LEAD with Europe Programme and MinRegion. “Last year, the Serhiyivska AH (Hadyach Rayon) employed a family doctor and provided his family with accommodation. He came to work from the neighbouring Sumy Oblast. In the end, everyone is satisfied – the residents with high-quality healthcare services, and the doctor’s family – with housing and working conditions. All this became possible due to the joint work of the hromada leadership and the deputy corps. The same story is currently observed in Hlobyne. The AH, headed by Stanislav Dzhus, positively surprises skeptics and saboteurs of the decentralisation reform almost every month.”