The Children’s Department
Just imagine such a situation: According to a medical referral your child is admitted to the Central Orihiv Regional Hospital. You, carrying your baby and bags, enter through hospital admission and then proceed to your ward. There you see six beds (which are around twenty years old or more), a window with frames that have been paper glued by the hospital staff to protect little patients from draughts, and an ancient fireplace – a 2,5 meter long metal beam standing on bricks. There are also only two small shelves for all the children’s things. This atmosphere makes you feel depressed.
A little patient is not alone there; his or her mom is always around. The child enjoys his or her own blanket, favourite toy, clothes and a bed sheet brought from home. You’re lucky if you get an opportunity to stay in a renovated ward financed by the local government, providing you with a restroom and a shower! However, there are two wards that are not in such fine condition. If you peer into of one of these wards, you may see children whose parents face critically hard financial situation or those who have no parents at all. Such children are usually brought to the hospital from a maternity hospital (or from a toddlers’ department) for a checkup or before going to an orphanage (from one to 18 years old). It’s clear that such little, sometimes ill human beings don’t have anything and need your warmth, attention and smiles. It goes without saying, that besides love and care, babies need some bed sheets, clothes and nappies. The hospital wards in turn require insulated windows, new beds, diaper changing tables, wardrobes for children’s clothes and electric heaters.
While staying with your child in the hospital you’ll become painfully aware of all the pressing departmental needs. You’ll dream of equipping a psychotherapeutic room with an electric heater, linoleum, an Amplipulse device (which sets new standards in the treatment of musculoskeletal, cardiovascular systems as well as autonomic neuropathy) and a modern ultrasound inhaler. In the hospital dining room you, as well as other parents and staff members, will be extremely happy to see a new refrigerator (which would replace a carefully multi-painted “Dnipro” made in 1982), and a microwave oven (instead of the old electrical oven standing on two bricks). The first dream of the doctors – a digital scale which can weigh a baby as small as 500 grams – has already come true. Thanks to donations, “The Child’s Hopes” Charity Foundation has already purchased an infant and bathroom scales. Two corner rooms (the dining and psychotherapeutic rooms) as well as two children’s wards for kids who live in critical social conditions urgently need insulated windows. The little patients of another eleven wards are also looking forward to enjoying the warmth of new windows.
So, let’s summarize the needs of the little patients.
The Children’s department requires:
1. Medical equipment:
• Amplipulse “Radius-1” (5, 200 hryvnyas – 652 $);
• Ultrasound inhaler “Vulcan” (2,600 hryvnyas – 326 $);
2. Repair materials and furniture:
• Linoleum for four 73 square meters rooms;
• 14 modern electrical heaters, the best would be UFO heaters;
• 52 sets of bed clothes (the children’s and single sheets;
• 52 sets of blankets, mattresses, pillows;
• Nappies and children’s clothes;
• Diaper changing tables, wardrobes for children’s clothes and beds;
• Refrigerator;
• 14 metal-plastic windows, and for the four windows of the coldest wards (6, 097 hryvnyas – 764 $).
According to our calculations, the renovation of one advanced comfort ward will cost from around 400 hryvnyas (50 $). Textile materials can be donated by children’s parents (although the hospital successfully secures some secondhand materials). We will be glad if a volunteer carpenter can make children’s furniture. Everyone can contribute some money or even repair materials and windows. The results of the donation campaign will be regularly published in newspapers and in the webpages of “The Happy Child” Charity Foundation.
There are two different realities nowadays – temporality and vanity – political convulsions, economic crisis and cultural eclecticism. And there is another reality – the Children’s Department of the Central Orihiv Regional Hospital, where little patients need some nappies, warm windows and floors, blankets and pillows. These are things without which no normal treatment is possible. Is there any hope?
The Maternity Department
While you’re waiting for the mom in a natal room you’re exploring the surrounding world. Although you can’t help feeling a chill from two drafty windows, a warm floor gives you an idea that there must be some electrical heaters. These heaters should have kept your mom or even your grandma warm. However, a young mom feels herself rather comfortable here, since she’s staying in the renovated maternity ward. She doesn’t need any surgical bed. There is no such a bed available anyway. It’s good that you haven’t got your chance to visit the Special Care Baby Unit. Twenty-year old infant incubators are good for nothing but just some elementary help. A newer infant incubator made in 2003 is not reliable at all; it has already been repaired six times, totaling 700-800 hryvnyas or 87-100$. The Penlon device for manual lung ventilation (which is, in fact, supposed to be disposable) has been faithfully serving for eight years already, the electrical heating equipment for 17 years, and the necessary C-Section surgical tools for 19-24 years. The “ZIL Moskva” refrigerator where medicine is kept is a real treasure for rarity fans.
All in all, the needs of the Maternity Department are not quite as pressing as those of the Children’s Department. The Maternity Department has got some financial support from the district budget in 2006. Thanks to the district council and the municipal administration, there some renovation has been done in the postnatal room as well as in the advanced comfort ward for future mothers.
It’s still very difficult to tell newborn infants coming into the hospital about its problems.
Our society should contribute to the happy start of babies’ childhood and the joy of young mothers in this department.
By our mutual efforts we will find:
• Modern infant incubator (74, 874 hryvnyas – 9, 391 $);
• Therapeutic lamp for curing jaundice in newborns (19, 280 hryvnyas – 2, 418 $);
• Syringe with dose metering device (20, 200 hryvnyas – 2, 533 $);
• At least 5 Penlon devices for manual lung ventilation each of them costs 1, 800 hryvnyas – 255 $;
• Surgical bed for mothers-to-be (9, 240 hryvnyas – 1, 158 $);
•New refrigerator;
• Bed clothes, dressing gowns and shirts (for needy women);
According to the statistics of the Maternity Department of Central Orihiv Regional Hospital, for the past three years, 48% of newborns had jaundice, 7% were premature births, 5% had intrauterine growth retardation, and 3% had infant respiratory distress syndrome. The medical equipment mentioned above will enable newborns to adapt themselves to almost any extremes in their surroundings. 1,025 babies have been born in the last three years.
Since the only financial support of the hospital comes from the district budget, the doctors have to wait ages to get enough money to make any renovations. We really hope that through our efforts to inform the public, as well as coordinate other charitable foundations and doctors, we will be able to meet at least some of urgent needs of various hospital departments and solve the problems of their little patients.
Contact phone numbers: The Children’s Department - +3 8(06141) 4-31-36,
The Maternity Department- +3 8 (06141) 4-31-41,
The head doctor - +3 8(06141) 4-32-42.
You can transfer your donation to the hospital personally or using the account of “The Child’s Hopes” Charity Foundation.
