The child mortality rate is rising in Ukraine. Doctors are especially worried by deaths among newborns or premature babies. According to data provided by doctors, 10 out of every 300 newborns children have congenital pathologies that lead to death. This is a crisis for Ukraine because only two medical institutions in the country have specially equipped units to provide care to premature children. These are the resuscitation units at the Ukrainian Specialized Children’s Hospital OKhMADYT and the State Institute of Pediatrics, Obstetrics, and Gynaecology (PAH). The lack of necessary equipment is aggravated by the lack of funds to purchase it.
In order to solve this question at least partially, the Nemovliata Ukrainy Charity Project was launched two and a half months ago. It was created with the sole aim of raising money within a short time to purchase new equipment for hospital resuscitation units, above all, for the State Institute of Pediatrics.
“At the moment we have raised 40 percent of the projected sum,” says Volodymyr Tanyhin, a representative of the initiative group of the Nemovliata Ukrainy Charity Project. “We expected to raise more than a million hryvnias at the beginning of the project. But we reduced the amount twice after a number of commercial organizations refused to fund us.”
According to Tanyhin, the minimum set of equipment for a resuscitation unit costs 6,500 hryvnias. It can save the lives of children with infectious and respiratory pathologies.
“These are the very diseases that are considered to be incompatible with life. But our institution’s most painful problem is that resuscitation and intensive care units for newborns and premature babies at the PAH is set up for nine babies,” explains Natalia Honcharenko, who works in this unit. “This is a very small number for an institution with national status. We provide help for 150- 170 babies every six months on average. But we fight for the lives of 14 children every day. We literally fight because all these children have extremely serious pathologies. Premature children born after an eight-month pregnancy have already formed a heart, lungs, kidneys, and other vital organs. But most often we deal with babies born after a four-month gestation. This is practically a half-child that is unable to breathe and eat on its own. Therefore, their lives have to be supported by special equipment. But we barely have any good, modern equipment,” Honcharenko says.
According to this pediatric medical professional, only three out of nine resuscitation units are fully equipped. But even they do not guarantee proper work conditions, because they have outlived their usefulness. In order for the unit to work well, a new artificial lung ventilator has to be purchased for those infants that cannot breathe on their own. There is also a need for effective life support systems and infant phototherapy warmer. Unfortunately, the hospital has no money to buy new equipment. The state’s contribution to solving this problem only amounts to providing drugs to resuscitation units.
It is a pity that the appeal of the project organizers to all Ukrainian political parties did not receive a response. Right now the Nemovliata Ukrainy Charity Project needs the support of the whole society. To raise the necessary funds, the charity is appealing to all caring individuals with a request for money (funds may be transferred to the “Ukraino, Ia za Tebe” Foundation, which supports this project: EDPNOU Code 35137539, PrivatBank Kyiv, Ukraine, MOO 380269, Correspondent account 26000056200125. Purpose of payment: charitable assistance for the Institute of Pediatrics, Obstetrics and Gynaecology of the AMN of Ukraine).
