Ukrainian salt mines reinvented as a haven for asthma sufferers

· Doctors say underground air relieves wheezing
· Britons targeted because of high rate of disease

Tom Parfitt in Kiev
Saturday December 3, 2005
The Guardian


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."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/ukraine/story/0,15569,1656768,00.html

health hydro?

http://www.radonmine.com/resource.html

Hey guys! Lets go hang out in a radioactive room.