Dnipropetrovsk — Kateryna Yushchenko, head of the supervisory board of the Ukraine 3000 International Charitable Fund, visited Dnipropetrovsk on a humanitarian mission. Accompanied by a representative of Procter&Gamble Ukraine, she handed to the Oblast Children’s Hospital a certificate for 475,000 hryvnias worth of medical equipment. Now this medical institution has modern artificial pulmonary ventilation equipment for premature newborns. The gift, the doctors say, is vital as mortality rate of this category of newborns is much higher in Ukraine than in developed countries.
According to Ukraine’s first lady, in the USA doctors bring 90 percent of premature newborns to life. In Ukraine only a quarter of such newborns have a chance to survive. “Ukrainian doctors, says Kateryna Yushchenko, possess solid professional skills, as well as great enthusiasm and dedication to their trade. However, sometimes this is not enough to give a child with poor health a chance to survive. To increase the survival rate of such children, experts need to have modern equipment at hand.”
The president’s wife noted that the Dnipropetrovsk oblast authorities pay a great deal of attention to the development of health care. For example, last year as much as 80 percent of the regional development budget was spent on health care in the oblast. Governor Viktor Bondar said that four district hospitals had been renovated. In late winter this year President Yushchenko took part in the grand opening of a modern diagnostic center and maternity hospital in Kryvy Rih. Their upgrading was financed with the money raised through the Kryvorizhstal deal. This year the construction of a new building of the oblast children’s clinic was launched even though the healthcare budget has been cut down nearly by two-thirds due to the crisis.
