Victor Pinchuk Foundation buys medical supplies for the Cradles of Hope centre at the Okhmatdyt hospital in Kyiv

As part of its technical support for the Cradles of Hope centres, the Victor Pinchuk Foundation has purchased 150 pulse oximeters worth 52,501 hryvnas for extremely preterm baby care at the National Children's Specialised Hospital Okhmatdyt.

The National Children's Specialised Hospital Okhmatdyt is a multi-disciplinary diagnostic and medical institution which provides highly-qualified medical assistance to children in in-patient care and a consultative-diagnostic polyclinic. Neonatal wards receive new-born babies from maternity homes in Kyiv and regions of Ukraine with severe perinatal pathology, congenital malformations, 30% of whom require surgeries of high complexity (reconstructive and corrective), extremely preterm babies and those with extremely low birth weight.

Collaboration with Okhmatdyt began in April 2009 thanks to the joint effort of the Victor Pinchuk Foundation and British artist Damien Hirst, who donated his Dark Days painting to the Foundation specifically for the Cradles of Hope project. The funds raised from the sale of this piece of art at Sotheby's were used to equip two intensive care unit rooms in special care nurseries for preterm babies No 1 and No 2. The hospital received 59 units of modern medical equipment worth a total of $320,448 to save the smallest patients. The Cradles of Hope centre has become the 17th partner centre opened by the Foundation within the framework of the charity project of the same name.

Tetyana Orlova, head of the nursery for extremely preterm babies: "Cooperation with the Victor Pinchuk Foundation has marked a new stage in the development of special care nurseries for preterm babies. First, a new paradigm for new-born stabilisation and intensive care has been adopted, and modern technologies have been integrated into the daily treatment process. Second, we have succeeded in significantly improving patient care and for many years now nurseries for preterm babies have had no fatalities."

More than 5,000 babies have been treated over the 10 years of partnership between the Victor Pinchuk Foundation and special care nurseries for preterm babies No 1 and No 2 at the National Children's Specialised Hospital Okhmatdyt.