“The Cradles of Hope”: Victor Pinchuk Foundation has opened a new neonatal intensive care center

On 4 August, a neonatal intensive care center was opened in the maternity hospital of the Vladimerets town (Rovenskaya region). It was done within the Cradles of Hope program being implemented by the Victor Pinchuk Foundation which envisages a networking of the neonatal centers nationwide.

During the inauguration, the Cradles of Hope program manager Larissa Polyakova voiced her expectation for saving the premature newborns' lives with the help of medical facilities granted by the Foundation.

"Since we launched the project on the eve of the 20th Commemoration of the Chernobyl catastrophe, we started from the districts within the Chernobyl zone. As Vladimerets has a Chernobyl spot, there is correspondingly a high rate of pathology or pathology hazard here. "Moreover, there was no maternity hospital in Vladimerets at all, though, according to statistics, the town demonstrates the highest birth rate in the Rovenskaya region and one of the highest birth rates in Ukraine", - she underlined.
   
As Larissa Polyakova informed, cost of the facilities delivered to the center totaled 304 000 hr. and that of ambulance, which the Foundation purchased for transporting the infants from the Rovno region to the regional children center, made up above 300 000 hr.

According to Serguey Buravskiy, chief of the obstetric-gynecological department of the Vladimerets maternity hospital, opening of the neonatal center would enable to identify timely the pre-natal abnormalities and to render assistance or, if needed, to transport children to the regional center by ambulance. "We would have never obtained this sum from the budget, especially from the local ones. It's a huge amount of money. Had it not been the Foundation, we would have had only a shell, i.e. this premise, but an empty one", - he stressed.
 
"The district depends on the State subsidy by 90%; it is very difficult to find the funds on our own, and therefore, we need such philanthropists as the Victor Pinchuk Foundation. We used to transport women in childbirth, covering 30 km.  At present, all the conditions have been created for aiding them on the spot or, in special cases, for transporting them to the regional maternity hospital', - Aleksandr Bobrik, chairman of the Vladimerets district public administration says.

The Cradles of Hope program has been developed and funded by the Victor Pinchuk Foundation to facilitate the infant mortality problem solving.

The program plans a nationwide networking of specialized neonatal centers (the neonatal intensive care departments) in the coming years.

The program includes: procurement of medical facilities, their maintenance, running of the advance training courses for the neonatal centers' doctors.

As a first phase of the program, a neonatal intensive care center was opened in the Chernigov maternity hospital in June 2006. The other three neonatal centers are due to open till the end of the year - in Poltava, Lutsk, Dnepropetrovsk.

The Children of Chernobyl Relief and Development Fund (Ukraine-USA) acts in this project as a partner of the Victor Pinchuk Foundation.

According to the State Committee of Statistics of Ukraine, about 4 000 infants under a year die annually in the country. No stable tendency for the infant mortality reducing is observed in Ukraine so far.
 
The Victor Pinchuk Foundation was established on 23 February 2006 with the aim of coordination and more efficient implementation of the charitable programs of Victor Pinchuk. The main programs of the Foundation are The Cradles of Hope project, The Contemporary Art Center in Ukraine, "Zavtra.ua" project for supporting the talented students. 

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