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August 29th, 2008
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Paving the way

Canadian Medical Care adds services

By Curtis M. Wong
Staff Writer, The Prague Post
May 14th, 2008 issue

VLADIMÍR WEISS/THE PRAGUE POST
Dr. František Kölbel says Canadian Medical Care has expanded since opening in 1995.
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Canadian Medical Care
Veleslavínská 1
Prague 6
Tel.: 235 360 133
E-mail:
cmc@cmcpraha.cz
Web:
www.cmcpraha.cz

CMC in The Park
V Parku 8
Prague 4
Tel.: 272 913 593
E-mail:
cmcinthepark@cmcpraha.cz

It’s probably safe to say that, for most people, a trip to the doctor is rarely an enjoyable experience. But, with its original location in Dejvice and its newer, but conveniently situated, branch office — CMC in The Park—in Prague 4, Canadian Medical Care has made a valiant effort to make both first-time and routine visits as pleasant as possible for its many patients.
The effort seems to be paying off. The healthcare provider has consistently gotten solid ratings from patients since the founding of its first office in 1995. Of course, the full range of the company’s services has expanded considerably since 1998, when Dr. Barbora Taušova stepped in after the group’s four original founders returned to Canada. Recently, there’s been a special focus on making all of the provider’s services available at its branch office, which opened in 2005, to accommodate even more patients. New this year at CMC in The Park is dental care, and other recent additions include physical therapy and gynecology.
While the company’s expanded range of services means there are more ailments to tend to, Dr. František Kölbel couldn’t be more pleased. The cardiologist joined the staff roster in 2001, having retired two years before from Motol Hospital, where he’d served as chairman of the Department of Medicine. Prior to that, the Prague native had spent nearly two years working at the UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles more than three decades earlier.
Recently, Kölbel spoke to The Prague Post, where he described Canadian Medical Care’s ever-growing range of medical services, the healthcare provider’s plans for the future and why he feels CMC has been able to establish itself as a leader in the Czech medical field.
The Prague Post: What would you say sets Canadian Medical Care apart from its competitors in the Czech medical field?
František Kölbel: Canadian Medical Care is a private healthcare provider and, as such, it has two main interests and two main principles. The first and most basic principle is good medical practice, and the second principle is providing medical care, which is tailored for each patient individually. It means we, as private healthcare providers, are not so strictly bound with all of the restrictive rules of the Health Ministry or Czech medical insurance companies, which sometimes limit financial resources. We may act much more freely in line, as I mentioned, with the principles of good clinical practice.
TPP: You mentioned a lot about restrictions. Would you say doctors in most other Czech offices follow a lot of restrictions in their work?
FK: Well, in Czech health care, each physician has to act in such a way to comply with certain rules. We are much better off because we do have some people under our care who are insured by Czech health insurance companies, but it’s a minority. Even within those, we have a special arrangement, which is helping us providing the best possible care.
TPP: If you look at Czech health care as a whole, what are its biggest problems currently?
FK: In general, the Czech Republic has good medical practices. … When you look at the statistics, the Czech Republic is in one of the leading positions in all of Europe in this regard. So I think we have a very favorable situation. Of course, not all hospitals or healthcare providers work identically. If I try to look at the situation from the eyes of a patient, coming from a foreign country and speaking very little Czech, I would say our biggest problem is the language barrier between the patient and physicians and nurses in hospitals. This is also true in clinics for outpatients. This is one of Canadian Medical Care’s biggest advantages — that all of our personnel are [multilingual]. I don’t see any language barrier with most of our patients.
TPP: When the first Canadian Medical Care office was established in Prague in 1995, what was its main purpose?
FK: It was an initiative by three Canadian colleagues who came to Prague with the idea of starting a clinic working in a way that would be meeting the highest standards of [health care in Canada]. After three years, for reasons that are not quite clear to me, they started to think about leaving Prague, and this was the time that Dr. Taušova took over.
TPP: What are the benefits that patients will receive if they choose Canadian Medical Care over another comparable healthcare provider?
FK: Well, healthcare providers are on different levels. One of the principles that are specific to Canadian Medical Care is the principle of taking care of both children and adults. Our management created a package of family preventive programs in terms of vaccinations for both children and adults. We now are also able to provide preventive dental care. The complexity of care is one of good principles, which is making people happy with respect to our services. It’s also worth mentioning that we’re able to assist patients who are interested in obtaining a second opinion under certain conditions. That’s one of our most specific abilities. In case our clients need some kind of highly specialized examinations, we’re in touch with the military hospital and the faculty hospital at Motol, because we know that all of the facilities are on hand there — the instruments and the specialists to examine the results are top quality.
TPP: What new types of services does Canadian Medical Care plan to offer in the future?
FK: Well, we shall see what the fields of interest are. If we have enough patients requesting it, we may provide consultations with specialists such as dermatologists and neurologists. Until now, these specialists provide services only in Prague 6. The clients who need this type of care still have to go to our Prague 6 location. If the demand from patients is high enough, we may start bringing these specialists to our Prague 4 location.
TPP: Finally, does Canadian Medical Care plan to expand with other branch offices in Prague or the rest of the Czech Republic?
FK: Certainly not outside of Prague. … Whether we shall expand to other parts of Prague would be a question for our top management. On one side, it may be quite good looking; on the other hand, there could be a lot of problems connected with that. And in my opinion, one of them would be finding good enough physicians, nurses and administrative co-workers who meet all of the criteria — especially the language qualifications — in such a way that a new office would maintain the level of our health care.

Curtis M. Wong can be reached at specialsection@praguepost.com


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