In Soviet times a spell in the salt mines was the fate of dissidents and criminals. But today the glittering tunnels below Solotvyno in western Ukraine have been transformed into a more benign destination: a haven for people with asthma and other respiratory diseases.
Doctors at Solotvyno's allergological hospital dispatch patients to dank chambers 300 metres below ground, where a unique microclimate is said to ease their coughing and wheezing. The hospital, set among rolling hills near the border with Romania, started as a small clinic almost 30 years ago but is now a luxury complex serving about 6,000 people a year.
Increasingly it is attracting customers from western countries where urbanisation and dietary changes have contributed to rising rates of asthma.
"Recently we've had people from Germany, the US and Poland," the chief doctor, Yaroslav Chonka, told the Guardian. "We're particularly interested in establishing links with British patients because of the high incidence of asthma."
The UK has the world's highest prevalence of severe wheeze in 13- to 14-year-olds, and treating asthmatics costs the NHS an estimated £889m a year. About 5.2 million people are currently receiving treatment for asthma
Western experts remain sceptical, but staff in Solotvyno say a course of residential treatment is 90% effective in reducing symptoms for up to three years. Their method is known as speleotherapy: it employs the salt-permeated air of the working mine to dissolve phlegm in the bronchial tubes and kill micro-organisms that cause infections.
Speleotherapy was discovered in Poland in the 1950s, when it was noticed that salt miners rarely suffered from tuberculosis or respiratory diseases. It is a common treatment in eastern and central Europe, but almost unknown elsewhere.
The underground facility situated in shaft No 9 of Solotvyno's salt mine is unique because its tunnels are the deepest in the world to be used for such purposes. Patients - a third of them children - spend an average of 24 days at the facility, during which they descend in a lift for 18 to 20 afternoon or overnight sessions.
Temperature in the mine stays at a steady 22C (72F) all year round. Up to 200 people can be underground at one time; talking, reading or sleeping on beds grouped together in alcoves carved out of the rock and lit by fluorescent tubes. The course costs £13 a day for private patients.
Dr Chonka said the air in the tunnels helped to lessen the respiratory tract's sensitivity to allergens. "People who had a number of treatment courses were cured from asthma for 15 years or more," he said.
Experts abroad remain doubtful. "There is very little evidence available to suggest it is an effective intervention treatment for people with asthma," said Caroline Moye of Asthma UK.
But some patients disagree. "This place is a godsend," Yelena Dietrich, a German whose 10-year-old daughter is having her first treatment at Solotvyno, told the AFP news agency. "Before, running was out of the question for her. Now she can run."
Professor Kian Fan Chung, an asthma expert from the National Heart and Lung Institute at Imperial College, said he was unfamiliar with the treatment but that it was unlikely to be harmful. "It sounds rather fun and that may be one reason it produces good results," he said.
Comments
Post a Comment