Appleton Post Crescent, WI
March 26 2004

Fox Cities serves as health example

How area treats children may be applied in Eurasia

By Kara Patterson
Post-Crescent staff writer

APPLETON – Dr. Arzu Rustamova of Baku, Azerbaijan, says she’s found
hope for her capital city’s orphanage-bound children with special
needs in Appleton’s approach to community wellness.

`The children were abandoned because they need constant care and
attention, and the parents are not able to see their condition might
be changed for the better,’ said Rustamova through an interpreter.
`It’s important to communicate to parents that they should be active
participants of this process.’

Rustamova is one of 17 physician administrators in the U.S.
Department of Commerce’s Special American Business Internship
Training Program who spent this week in the Fox Valley learning
management strategies they’ll employ in their five Eurasian home
countries.

They say their observations of healthy American communities will help
them contribute to their countries’ transitions from
government-controlled health care to privatized systems structured
more around individual responsibility.

The Fox Cities-Kurgan Sister Cities Program Inc. and World Services
of La Crosse Inc. introduced the delegation to local health care
professionals, business leaders, teachers and nonprofit service
providers.

The group leaves today for Des Moines, Iowa, on its four-week U.S.
tour.

Rustamova, the administrator of Baku Children’s Rehabilitation
Center, met a potential mentor in Bob Russo, president/CEO of the
Appleton-based Valley Packaging Industries Inc.

Valley Packaging’s Early Intervention Program, serving children with
disabilities from birth to 3 years old, may influence the development
of Rustamova’s proposed pilot program. She’s hoping to turn full-day
orphanage care for special-needs children in Baku into a day program
dependent upon family support.

`That carries over to when they are no longer children,’ Russo said.
`One of the things I pointed out was how our program not only treats
the child but reduces the need for (future) medical attention and
other services.’

Dr. Karmella Poghosyan, who oversees a pediatric hospital in Yerevan,
Armenia, said she was impressed by displays of nutrition, personal
hygiene and healthy lifestyles information decorating the walls of
Johnston Elementary School in Appleton.

Dr. Victor Pologov, a city health department administrator in
Sevastopol, Ukraine, said his country’s employers must learn more
about health insurance because such benefits now are on the horizon
for their employees.

Kara Patterson can be reached at 920-993-1000, ext. 215, or by e-mail
at kpatterson@postcrescent.com