The Victor Pinchuk Foundation Opened the 20th Neonatal Centre ‘Cradles of Hope’ in Sumy

On Wednesday, 24 February 2010, the Victor Pinchuk Foundation opened the 20th neonatal centre under the program ‘Cradles of Hope' in Sumy, based on the Regional Centre for Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Issues. The foundation spent UAH 1 145 201 to open the Сentre.

The Sumy Regional Centre for Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Issues reorganized on the basis of the Regional Clinical Maternity No 2 in December 2001, operates as a perinatal centre: a health care institution providing third level medical care that actively implements up-to date best obstetric techniques. More than 60 % of all premature babies of the region that need a special treatment are born here. Due to a lack of medical equipment of an appropriate level, the Centre has been facing dramatic issues of providing an adequate respiratory assistance, infusion therapy, continuous patients monitoring, maintaining premature babies' thermal chain.

Two reanimation complexes fully provided with all the necessary medical equipment have been commissioned to the Reanimation and Intensive Care Department of the Sumy Regional Centre for Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Issues, including: equipment for care about babies with an extremely low weight; a transport incubator to transport newborn babies within hospital; the Obstetrics Department received a monitor for mother and foetus that allows monitoring the state of a babe in the womb, and reanimation kits for the primary reanimation in the lying-in ward. A compressor station allowing for switching on up to 8 compressors has been installed in a separate room in the intensive care ward, in line with the modern requirements, which will fully exclude negative noise impacts on the small patients.

Additionally, the Babies Reanimation Department received eight dozes of Curosurf of a total value of UAH 34 592 as a security reserve of this surfactant. This drug is necessary to open the premature babies' lungs. Using it reduces significantly the probability of lethal cases due to newborns' breath problems.

The medical equipment of such a high class commissioned to the Centre for Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Issues will allow not only to create additional capacities in the Newborns Reanimation Department but also to introduce a new type of breathing support (non-invasive artificial ventilation); it will provide specialists with wider possibilities for babies emergency aid, will get its quality closer to international standards and improve the survivability of profoundly premature newborns and the quality of their further lives.

By starting the cooperation with the Sumy Regional Centre for Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Issues, the Victor Pinchuk Foundation makes a new step in creation of the nation-wide neonatal program ‘Cradles of Hope' established in 2006. Over three years of the program operation, the Foundation opened twenty centres in Chernihiv, Volodymyrets, Lutsk, Poltava, Dnipropetrovsk, Kyiv (2 centres), Chernivtsi, Bahchisarai, Izmail, Odessa, Simferopol, Donetsk, Khmelnytsky, Zhytomir, Cherkassy, Ivano-Frankivsk, Mykolaiv, Ternopil and Sumy. The total amount the Foundation spent on the implementation of the ‘Cradles of Hope' program is UAH 31 945 533.