You're reading: Is Boryspil ready for the flood of tourists for the tournament?

The death of a passenger at Boryspil airport last month is raising questions about whether Ukraine’s main airport can safely handle the flow of thousands of soccer fans arriving this summer for the Euro 2012 soccer championships.

Ruzanna Shkred, 49, slipped going down the boarding ramp while exiting an airplane on Dec. 4, hitting her head badly. Her husband and two of their three children witnessed the scene. She lapsed into a coma the next day and died four days later.

Volodymyr Shkred, her widower, thinks his wife might still be alive today if she had gotten proper care. Instead, he said she had to wait for at least 30 minutes before the airport doctor arrived and almost three hours before getting to the hospital.

He blames airport staff for making both of them pass through passport control, while his wife was occasionally losing conscious and bleeding. He said two people had to support her because she could not walk.

Airport officials dispute this version of events, saying Shkred was conscious, walked by herself and received medical aid as fast as was possible.
The incident has cast a spotlight on Boryspil’s procedures for responding to medical emergencies, which differ from those in Warsaw, Poland, which will co-host the June-July event.

Volodymyr Shkred with his dead wife’s portrait. (Kostyantyn Chernichkin)

Serhiy Hombolevsky, acting deputy head of Boryspil airport, said there is one ambulance at the airport and that another will be acquired before Euro 2012. The ambulances, however, are not allowed to leave the airport and will only be able to deliver the patient to one of the airport’s first aid posts, where medical attention is given until another ambulance arrives from the city.

Warsaw’s Chopin Airport, by comparison, has three ambulance cars. According to Przemyslaw Przybylski, a spokesman for the airport, ambulances can deliver injured people to hospitals, but only one ambulance can leave at once, as the others have to stay to cover the airport’s needs.

Boryspil’s Hombolevsky said the airport usually calls an ambulance from the city. “The hospital in Boryspil is mostly used by Kyiv region citizens. For all others, including foreigners, we call an ambulance from Kyiv,” he said.

He admits that ambulances from Kyiv aren’t stationed near the airport, which is 20 kilometers from Kyiv’s border. It therefore takes at least 30 minutes for an ambulance to arrive after the call.

Ruzanna Shkred, who was injured while leaving the plane, waited for at least 30 minutes – on top of the time it took the local doctor to arrive.

Each of the five terminals of Boryspil has a first-aid room supplied with medical equipment and medicines. A duty team of two or three doctors helps both passengers and people waiting for acquaintances in the arrivals hall. In special cases, passport control can be held inside an ambulance. Shkred, despite her temple being badly bruised and her ear bleeding, didn’t get that option.

Boryspil officials, however, are confident that they will be able to safely handle the flood of passengers.
Servicing foreigners is clearly not new for the international airport. Nor is the large quantity of passengers, which happens every year when Hasidic Jews visit for Jewish New Year.

More than 30,000 pilgrims arrive at the airport over two days, increasing the daily number of passengers by 50 percent. To handle the large numbers, a marquee is installed outside for all the Hasid passengers to go through passport control and get their luggage, without crowding the terminal halls.

According to Boryspil spokeswoman Oksana Ozhygova, the airport is considering doing the same for the Euro 2012 guests, if needed. “But with the capacity we have and the new terminal D opening, we are sure we can cover the Euro needs,” she said.

Officials estimate that up to 4,100 fans may be arriving every hour. Ozhygova said the airport will be able to handle the increased flow of luggage by tapping into the currently unused capacity.

The airport can also accommodate passengers with special needs. Administrators are on hand to help organize a wheelchair and an escort for those who require it. If a passenger has specially marked ticket, a wheelchair will be waiting near the plane entrance. If needed, a special wagon helps people with special needs to get onboard without using a boarding ramp.

The security at Boryspil airport is already watched over by an 800-strong team, nearly 20 percent of the airport’s entire staff. Oleksander Ivanchuk, head of Boryspil airport’s security service, uses the word “sterile” frequentlywhen speaking of airport security rules, meaning safe and checked. Special attention is paid to staff’s “sterility.”

“Every single worker here was checked for a possible criminal record and for drug and alcohol addiction,” Ivanchuk said. He proudly speaks of 1,000 cameras watching the airport’s territory and an unrivaled team of about 30 dog handlers with dogs trained to find explosives and drugs.

Still, Boryspil officials say they have nothing to learn from the death of Shkred, as they are sure they did their best. They say a video recording proves that the injured woman was fine, but they refuse to show it, citing an ongoing investigation by prosecutors that was started after a complaint by the widower.

“If the prosecutor decides that it’s not worth a criminal case, I’ll file another claim. There is a chance that she would still be alive had she been delivered to the hospital on time. I’m absolutely going to get compensation, as I have three kids to raise. And I don’t want anyone else to go through the hell I’ve experienced, so there must be a trial on the case,” Shkred said.

Kyiv Post staff writer Olga Rudenko can be reached at [email protected].

Читайте об этом на www.kyivpost.ua