The Victor Pinchuk Foundation opens its 35th Cradles of Hope Neonatal Centre in Lutsk

On 18 July 2019, the Victor Pinchuk Foundation opened its 35th Cradles of Hope neonatal centre in Lutsk on the basis of the Volyn Regional Perinatal Centre which is now in operation after a long construction period.

It is the second Cradles of Hope centre in Volyn Region. The first one based on the Volyn Regional Children's Territorial Medical Association has been in operation since 2006.

The opening of the 35th Cradles of Hope centre is yet another step taken by the Foundation as part of the eponymous charity project to create a nationwide network of neonatal care centres aimed at cutting down the infant mortality rate in Ukraine. Since 2006, UAH 112,120,301 ($13.7 million) has been invested in the project, and 35 Cradles of Hope centres have been provided with up-to-date medical equipment in 25 regions of Ukraine.

The Victor Pinchuk Foundation has purchased medical and computer equipment worth UAH 6.93 million for the neonatal intensive care unit. This includes two conventional lung ventilators allowing for non-invasive ventilation, a high-frequency oscillatory ventilator, a non-invasive ventilator, a state-of-the-art transformable incubator with automatic temperature and humidity control, a portable incubator with a built-in portable lung ventilator, a cerebral-function amplitude-integrated electroencephalography monitor, a vital signs monitor with a capnography feature, a neonatal respiratory resuscitator, an oxygen therapy system and a neonatal ultrasound system.

Iryna Goravska, acting director general at the Volyn Regional Perinatal Centre: "The most up-to-date medical equipment provided by the Victor Pinchuk Foundation gives our experts additional professional opportunities to provide higher quality emergency medical care to babies, including those with an extremely low weight. What is more, it will allow us to introduce the latest technology in neonatal care, carry out artificial ventilation with full control of vital functions, as well as diagnostics, treatment and monitoring of patients' neurological condition."

This equipment will guarantee all types of respiratory support, including high-frequency oscillatory artificial ventilation for children in an extremely bad condition when conventional ventilation is not effective; enable new technology in natal care, including the lung recruitment manoeuver, monitoring of the neurological condition and activity of the brain, diagnostics of invisible spasms; open wider professional opportunities for specialists to provide emergency neonatal care and bring it closer to international standards, improve the chance of survival for extremely preterm babies and the quality of their future lives.

Volyn Region needed a modern perinatal centre due to the lack of a third-level maternity hospital, and the need to bring together obstetric, neonatal and paediatric services in order to provide quality perinatal services, reduce perinatal pathology, prevent maternal and infant mortality, improve local residents' access to highly-qualified specialised medical care.

The Volyn Regional Perinatal Centre is designed to handle 2,500-3,000 births a year. It includes the consulting and diagnostic departments, which can process 200 visits per shift, and the obstetric and gynaecological clinic for 102 patients.

Since June 2006, the Victor Pinchuk Foundation has opened 35 Cradles of Hope centres in Chernihiv, Volodymyrets (Rivne Region), Rivne, Lutsk (two centres), Poltava (two centres), Dnipro (two centres), Kyiv (three centres), Chernivtsi, Bakhchysarai, Izmayil, Odesa, Simferopol (two centres), Donetsk, Khmelnytsky (two centres), Cherkasy, Kropyvnytsky, Ivano-Frankivsk, Zhytomyr, Kharkiv, Kherson, Mykolayiv, Ternopil, Sumy, Uzhgorod, Lugansk, Zaporizhzhia, Vinnytsia and Lviv.

Over the 13 years of the programme operation, 574,252 infants have been born in partner hospitals, including 84,287 newborn babies who were patients of the Cradles of Hope neonatal intensive care centres. According to doctors, 49,341 babies have been saved thanks, among other factors, to the equipment provided by the Victor Pinchuk Foundation. The overall investment of the Victor Pinchuk Foundation into the Cradles of Hope programme since its launch has amounted to almost UAH 112,120,301 ($13.7 million).