New Cradle of Hope project launched

A new medical center specializing in the treatment of infants has just opened in the city of Khmelnytsky. The Cradle of Hope program, part of the Viktor Pinchuk Foundation, was formed on the basis of the city’s Perinatal Center with the collaboration between this program and the city and oblast state administrations. The Khmelnytsky Perinatal Center is the region’s only medical institution that shoulders most of the deliveries in the oblast and especially complicated cases involving miscarriages and extragenital pathologies in pregnant women. With the launch of the new infant intensive care department, this center is becoming an important perinatal facility capable of providing a whole range of treatments.

During the opening ceremony, Viktor Pinchuk said: “The goal of our Cradle of Hope program is to give all our newborns a chance for survival. Our efforts are aimed at preserving the main human right, the right to live. We are only starting out on this road. The hardest and most important aspect, the struggle for children’s lives, will begin after this ribbon is cut. Let’s take a realistic view: we may suffer losses in this struggle. But I am convinced that there will be more victories. Every victory means a life saved.”

The Cradle of Hope program envisages the creation of a nationwide network of neonatal centers supplied with the latest hi-tech equipment available on the world market, along with appropriately trained personnel and efforts to create a professional milieu in this field.

The chief distinction of the Cradle of Hope program is that every such center will uphold mandatory high professional standards. These centers will be created with the participation of the best medical experts in the perinatal field and constant monitoring by the program participants.

Since the launch of the Cradle of Hope program, 12 neonatal centers have been established in Ukraine. More than 33,000 children, including 4,285 newborns, have received treatment in the intensive care and resuscitation wards. In 2007 some 700 newborns were saved thanks to equipment supplied to the Cradle of Hope. In 2006, 460 infants were treated. The Viktor Pinchuk Foundation donated 2,400,000 dollars in 2006-07.