Category Archives: Ukrainian Pediatric Surgery

CMCF Facilitates Donation & Transfer of Medical Equipment From Polish Hospitals to Ukrainian Pediatric Medical Centers

General, Ukrainian Neonatology, Ukrainian Pediatric Surgery

By stepping outside of its fellowship-granting comfort zone, CMCF was able to reach an exciting new milestone in its evolving history of efforts to elevate neonatal and pediatric care standards this week with the successful transfer $3,500,000.00 USD of unused medical equipment from children’s hospitals throughout Poland to their counterparts throughout Ukraine.

 The gifting of these otherwise idle ventilators, infusion pumps, neonatal respirators, incubators, monitors, orthopedic baby beds, anesthesia devices, bacteriological lamps, laboratory equipment, a resuscitation station and a transdermal bilirubin measurement device was the brainchild of CMCF Vice President-and former nurse-Jolanta Martinoff, and would not have been possible without the expertise and accumulated goodwill of Prof.-and longtime CMCF Board Member-Maria Katarzyna Borszewska-Kornacka and the persistence of CMCF’s Country Managing Director for Ukraine, Dr. Zoryana Ivanyuk.

 More about the particulars of which Polish hospitals participated and what items were donated can be found in these two recent articles. The broad outlines of this groundbreaking act of international cooperation are these:

In accordance with a Memorandum of Understanding signed between the Children’s Medical Care Foundation and the Ministry of Health of Ukraine in 2017, site visits of 10 neonatal and pediatric medical centers throughout Ukraine were conducted by representatives of CMCF to assess their adequacy to serve as hosts for a series of pilot neonatal medical trainings the foundation had been conceptualizing.

During these visits, conducted by Prof. Borszewska-Kornacka, and Jolanta Martinoff, it was discovered that a number of these hospitals were in shockingly short supply of even the most basic medical equipment. 

An idea occurred to Mrs. Martinoff-what if surplus medical equipment from partner institutions in Poland, much of it collecting dust in hospital basements, could be transferred to these institutions which were in such need of it.

Mrs. Martinoff convinced Prof. Borszewska-Kornacka to approach the director of the hospital whose neonatal intensive care unit she once headed to ask if he might consider such an equipment transfer, which, to her delight, he was willing to assent to. But that was just the beginning.

CMCF initiated contact with the Ministries of Health of Poland and Ukraine to obtain formal governmental permission for donation, and acceptance of the equipment. This involved multiple politically sensitive communiques back and forth-and re-starts through a transition of Ministry heads.

CMCF hired a private shipping company, and then another as the first fell through, and finally a third who did not shy away from the task. 

In addition to the obvious benefits to patient care Ukrainian hospitals having such modern equipment affords, it also expands the geographic reach of group trainings-an increasing organizational emphasis favored for its potential to more quickly disseminate modern medical knowledge-and at a fraction of the cost-of individual observerships.

 If you are aware-or have medical colleagues in Poland who you think might be-of surpluses of functioning medical equipment not currently in use by the hospitals at which you or they practice, you are strongly encouraged to contact CMCF president, Bjoern Martinoff, at bjoern@cmcf.org.

Ukrainian Pediatricians Participate in Minimally Invasive Endoscopic Surgery Training

General, Ukrainian Pediatric Surgery

The Children’s Medical Care Foundation sponsored the participation of 10 Ukrainian pediatric surgeons at a 2-day special course on minimally invasive surgical techniques that took place at the Aesculap Academy in the city of Nowy Tomysl, Poland, on June 6th & 7th, 2018. The training opportunity was conceptualized and taught by Professors-and former CMCF Fellowship awardees-Dariusz Patkowski and Piotr Czauderna. Patkowski, head of the Pediatric Surgery and Urology Department at Wroclaw University of Medicine, and Czauderna, Head of the Department of Surgery and Urology for Children and Adolescents at the Medical University of Gdansk, have shared generously what they have learned in their lengthy and distinguished medical careers, and personify the ethos of excellence-and international collaboration-CMCF aims to foster. Attendees were drawn from every region of Ukraine, extending CMCF’s impact beyond the Greater Lviv region for the first time in the foundation’s history.

Pediatric Surgeons From Eastern Ukraine Participate in 7th Annual Congress of the European Society of Pediatric Enoscopic Surgeons

General, Ukrainian Pediatric Surgery

The Children’s Medical Care Foundation sponsored the participation of eight pediatric surgeons from the Lugansk, Donetsk and Odessa regions of Eastern Ukraine at the 7th Annual Congress of the European Society of Pediatric Endoscopic Surgeons (ESPES) in Wroclaw, Poland, on September 27-29th, 2017.

This conference was chaired by Prof. Dariusz Patkowski, who heads the Pediatric Surgery and Urology Department at Wroclaw University of Medicine, and who himself benefited from CMCF-sponsored supplemental specialized medical training earlier in his distinguished medical career.

Distinguished surgeons from across Europe attended this conference, as did Vasyl Prytula, MD, PhD, Chief Pediatric Surgeon of the Ministry of Health of Ukraine.

CMCF Fellows in attendance included:

  1. Ievgen Mozhaiev – pediatric surgeon, assistant professor, Department of Surgery, Lugansk State Medical University, Severodonetsk Municipal Multiprofile Hospital, Severodonetsk, Lugansk region, Ukraine.
  2. Natalia Tereshchenko – pediatric surgeon, assistant professor, Department of Surgery, Lugansk State Medical University, Severodonetsk Municipal Multiprofile Hospital, Severodonetsk, Lugansk region, Ukraine.
  3. Sergiy Veselyy – pediatric surgeon, medical doctor, professor, head of the Department of Surgery and Pediatric Surgery, Donetsk National Medical University, Kramatorsk, Donetsk region, Ukraine.
  4. Oleg Yudin – pediatric surgeon, assistant of the Department of Surgery and Pediatric Surgery, Donetsk National Medical University, Kramatorsk, Donetsk region, Ukraine.
  5. Dmytro Samofalov – pediatric surgeon, associate professor of the Department of Pediatric Surgery, Odessa National Medical University, Odessa, Ukraine.
  6. Iona Dilanyan – pediatric surgeon, Deputy Chair of Pediatric Surgery, Odessa Regional Pediatric Hospital, Odessa, Ukraine.
  7. Anastasia Kvashnina – assistant professor, Department of Pediatric Surgery, Odessa National Medical University, Odessa, Ukraine.
  8. Sergii Pavlenko – pediatric surgeon, assistant professor, Department of Pediatric Surgery, Odessa National Medical University, Odessa, Ukraine.

We look forward to continuing this successful collaboration with our Ukrainian pediatric surgeons.