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Good Samaritan Children’s Charities |
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Medical Supplies and Equipment |
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Hospitals throughout Ukraine were desperate for the most basic supplies that we take for granted without ever thinking about it. What if you went to hospital and had to bring your own bedding? Or a relative does not bring you food, you may not eat. Need medicine? Better have a relative or friend go to the pharmacy and buy it for you, and pray that it is not counterfeit. Managed care? YOU”RE the manager! That describes what may be the worst case scenario but it is certainly not uncommon. The medical field was one of the most lucrative corruption schemes of the previous regime. All equipment and medicines were routed through the Ministry of Health. An estimated 40% of medicines were counterfeit. Directors of hospitals had iron-clad control of purchasing and disbursements. Suppliers “paid to play.”
The doctors and nurses did their best to operate in this corrupt system. New laws and regulations are being passed ro restore confidence to the medical system but it is a slow process. One of the breakthroughs was the establishment of Boards of Trustees to supersede hospital directors. The results are apparent at the Children’s Hospital, Lviv, and the new Inovo Diagnostic Center opened November, 2014. Board members Alexander Maksimchuk and Andrei Ionov spearheaded the efforts, with help from Ukraine 3000, to build a state of the art diagnostic center with the latest technology. Great things are possible!
However, with the war, budgets were cut to 20%, inflation and devaluation have purchasing power to as little as 7%. The letter below from Dr. Sergiy Siromakha, MD, PhD, Administrative Director of the National Institute of Cardiovascular Surgery, describes the situation as I also heard from neonatalists and neurosurgeons in Lviv, and orthopedic surgeons and private practitioners in Mukacheve.
Our goal was to ship containers full of common necessary items - gloves, sutures, syringes, caps, gowns, bedding, small instruments - directly to the hospitals and people we know and trust for the direct benefit of them and their patients. With the help of MedWish Intenational, Cleveland, Ohio, we were able to ship a 20’ container to Amozov National Cardiovascular Surgical Institute in Kyiv in 2017. |
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Dr. Siromakha and his Head Surgical Nurse with sutures donated by GSCC through MedWish.org, Cleveland, OH |
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MedWish and Good Samaritan Children’s Charities’ Hospital Relief Project 2016 |
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MedWish receives major contributions of supplies from large hospitals, clinics, and medical suppliers. They make these supplies available at very low cost to approved humanitarian organizations. GSCC was approved in April and I carried a suitcase full of instruments and supplies to Ukraine in May. We work with hospitals I know and have a personal relationship with to make sure that everything that goes there is used to the benefit of the patients at no cost to them. |
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Supporting Good Samaritan Children’s Home of Nagydobrony, Transcarpathia, and Octhiy Dim (Father’s House) Children’s Home, Kyiv,Ukraine and Allied Hospitals and Doctors since 2009 |
