It is time to summarize our annual mission to take care of Ukrainian children. This time the trip was organized and took place in Łęczna, Poland. This was an incredibly complicated operation in terms of logistics and required great collaboration from the American, Polish, and Ukrainian teams.
Thus far there have been zero complications after 69 surgical interventions in 19 kids in Łęczna, Poland. It is important to acknowledge the teamwork and participants from three different countries. Listed below are only a few names of people who were involved in organizing care for these kids, but there are many more. Thank you all for making the mission a success.
Thank you to:
Polish team:
– Dr. Krzysztof Bojarski, the director of the hospital, for his kindness, intelligence, and professionalism. His courage to start, organize, and give “a green light” made this project possible.
– We would especially like acknowledge Dr. Peter Tomaka, who is a deputy of the director, for his compassion, dedication, and time in running all logistics. This included but was not limited to hosting our team, obtaining medical licensing for our group, organizing perioperative care, patient logistics, and local transportations.
– Samodzielny Publiczny Zakład Opieki Zdrowotnej w Łęcznej Hospital for opening us their doors.
– Starostwo Powiatowe w Łęcznej for making kids welcome in hotel.
What a great opportunity it was to work with the Polish surgical, anesthesia and nursing teams to provide care for Ukrainian kids.
Ukrainian team:
-Максим Козицький, Governor of Lviv; Dr. Орест Чемерис for organizing patient transport over the border to Poland and back to Lviv.
– Drs. Roman Kizyma and Svitozar Khalak (Західноукраїнський спеціалізований дитячий медичний центр) for 3 patients follow up in Lviv.
– Dr. Natalia Yevchenko for running a Burn Camp during the mission; for providing mental evaluation, social and mental support to the parent and kids during the mission, and patient transports.
-Serhii Lysak Sergiy Lisak, Governor of Dnipro, Володимир Орлов for organizing transport kids from Lviv to Dnipro.
– Dr. Алексей Власов, Director of Регіональний медичний центр родинного здоров’я Regional Children Hospital in Dnipro, for managing, organizing follow up and further rehabilitation of the 11 kids after the surgery.
– Dr. Максим Савенко for managing all paperwork and patient selections for the mission.
– Drs. Артем Посунько and Эдуард Полянин for their volunteering and patients follow up.
– Dr. Vasyl Strilka, Mariya Ionova, and Dr. Іван Черненко (from Odessa) for their help with logistics
– Dr. Olga Kovalenko (Kiev) for follow up of 3 patients in Kiev.
US team:
– UNWLA – Ukrainian National Women’s League of America, Inc.
– Children’s Burn Foundation
– Brother’s Brother Foundation
– Children Hospital Boston Foundation
– Doctors Collaborating to Help Children and others to support this mission.
All ten team members who came from four different states (Massachusetts, Michigan, Texas, Missouri) away from their family to provide care for Ukrainian kids.
Kristen Shamus and Mandi Wright from Detroit Free Press – for great story about Ukrainian children.
