Press-releases
16.07.2009
The Victor Pinchuk Foundation opened “Cradles of Hope” neonatal centre in Mykolaiv
On 16 July 2009 based at Mykolaiv Regional Children’s Hospital the Victor Pinchuk Foundation opened the eighteenth “Cradles of Hope” Neonatal Centre under the Programme bearing the same name. In total, the Victor Pinchuk Foundation allocated UAH 1 063 294 for setting up the “Cradles of Hope” Neonatal Centre in Mykolaiv.
To complete equipping the newborns intensive care and paediatrics departments Mykolaiv Regional Children’s Hospital received the artificial pulmonary ventilation equipment, incubators, intensive care unit, monitoring units to control the vital signs of the patients, computer workstation and other equipment for premature newborns.
The medical gear bought for Mykolaiv “Cradles of Hope” Neonatal Centre will not only create new jobs in the hospital departments, but also widen the professional opportunities for the neonatal centre specialists in providing emergency care for infants, help to improve the survival rate of the extremely premature infants and quality of their lives in the future.
Oleksii Garkusha, Head of Mykolaiv Region State Administration: “Today we not only witnessing, but taking part in doing a good deed – start of team working between the Victor Pinchuk Foundation and Mykolaiv Region. The Foundation carries out noble and extremely important work by setting up a nationwide network of the “Cradles of Hope” Neonatal Centres. And our doctors will fight for every baby’s life. May Fortune and God’s Blessing favour us in this endeavour!”
Mykolaive Regional Children’s Hospital is the only place in the region with functioning departments of the newborns intensive care and paediatrics that provide anaesthetic, diagnostic and therapeutic treatment for infants, including those with an extremely low birth weight. Overloaded by the constant stream of patients, arriving from all over the region, and being short of the specialist equipment to care for extremely premature infants, up to now the hospital has been constantly facing the most critical issue of acquiring the deficient medical devices.
Dmytro Gotsuliak, Physician-in-Chief of Mykolaiv Regional Children’s Hospital: “In view of the constantly growing number of patients, both intensive care and paediatrics departments for premature newborns were in an urgent need of extra medical equipment. And this is the reason why aid coming from the Victor Pinchuk Foundation is incredibly well-timed and important for the hospital. Professionalism of our highly skilled staff combined with their responsiveness and care for children, and also having modern hi-tech equipment at hand, can make wonders.”
Valerii Vakariuk, Vice-President of the Victor Pinchuk Foundation: “In June 2009 the “Cradles of Hope” Programme celebrated its third anniversary. Therefore opening of the new Centre in Mykolaiv is significant for us. Step by step we are moving towards having the “Cradles of Hope” Centres, which save lives of our children, established in all regions of Ukraine. Since launch of the Programme nearly 60 000 infants were born in the Centres and almost 4 000 of the newborns were saved thanks to the medical equipment installed under the Programme.”
Additionally, in order to form a reserve stock of the Curosurf drug, the hospital’s newborns intensive care department received four doses of this surfactant valued at UAH 17 296. This drug is indicated for the treatment (rescue) of Respiratory Distress Syndrome in premature infants. Its usage reduces mortality rate associated with breathing problems of newborns.
Background:
The “Cradles of Hope” is one of the health care projects implemented by the Victor Pinchuk Foundation. The Programme’s strategic objective is to save life and health of every infant born in Ukraine.
The Programme provides for:
- setting up a nationwide network of Neonatal Centres equipped with the state-of-the-art medical devices;
- appropriate professional training programmes for the Centres staff. Under this initiative the Foundation regularly carries out a number of training courses, workshops and away conferences, gathering the top specialists from Ukraine and abroad;
- efforts made to form professional community able address the issues of the premature newborns.
The Programme stands out by having the “Cradles of Hope” Centres to follow high working standards achieved through consulting and engaging leading specialists in this area and constantly monitoring the partner establishments under the Programme.
Since its launch in June 2006 the Victor Pinchuk Foundation has opened 18 Neonatal Centres, i.e. in Chernigiv, Volodymyrets, Poltava, Dnipropetrovsk, Kyiv (2 Centres), Lutsk, Chernivtsy, Izmail, Bakhchysaray, Symferopol, Odesa, Donetsk, Khmelnytsky, Zhytomyr, Cherkasy, Ivano-Frankivsk and Mykolaiv.
Within this time over 59 000 infants were born in the “Cradles of Hope” Centres, including 9 492 newborns that were rescued thanks to the medical equipment installed under the “Cradles of Hope” Programme.
In the period of 2006 to the first half of 2009 the Victor Pinchuk Foundation provided over UAH 28 million for the Programme implementation.
Established in 2006 by a businessman and philanthropist Victor Pinchuk, the Victor Pinchuk Foundation is one of the largest Ukrainian private philanthropic organisations. The Foundation develops and implements social projects aimed at modernising Ukraine and nurturing a new generation of Ukrainian leaders.
The Foundation's priority fields of activities are health care, education, culture, human rights, Ukraine's global integration and local communities' development.
Among the largest projects of the Foundation are: the "Cradles of Hope" programme for opening neonatal health care centres throughout Ukraine, student scholarship programme "Zavtra.UA", the PinchukArtCentre contemporary art institution, international network YES (Yalta European Strategy) to support Ukraine’s aspirations for European integration.
