September 28, 2024
Great news! Back in January we raised $21,975 to deliver medical supplies and automatic electronic defibrillators (AEDs) to frontline ambulances in Ukraine. It has taken several months, but finally we can report the delivery from Poland to Ukraine of 11 BeneHeart C1A AEDs and a BeneHeart D30 AED. These AEDs have been installed in frontline ambulances operated by the rescue service of the Red Cross of Ukraine.
We would like to again thank our many donors, and especially our Platinum Sponsors Wegmans and aTonalHits, our Silver Sponsors The Rochester Academy of Medicine, and our Bronze Sponsors Allison L. Giordano, MD and The Ukrainian Federal Credit Union for their incredible support in making this important delivery possible.
We are thankful for all of our many donors, and your helping hands!
Since March, 2022 our donors have allowed us to complete 19 humanitarian projects, delivering tens of thousands of dollars in prescription medications, over-the-counter medications, wound care supplies, clinical equipment, and an ambulance – and we keep going strong!
We will continue to stand together and help Ukraine hold the light through this darkness. No one is intimidated and we will be with Ukraine until victory.
For the past several weeks we have been focusing on logistics to get medical aid to hospitals and clinics in the area of the Kharkiv region that was liberated in September 2022. Many of the towns in the region had been under occupation since March. One such town is Izyum (population 46,000). When the russians were sent packing in September, they destroyed much of the infrastructure on their way out and left behind mass graves. We had heard that the medical infrastructure in the town was devastated, and you can see the state of the local hospital in this report.
We are excited to announce an upcoming fundraising concert to benefit the Ukraine Medical Relief Fund hosted by the Allendale Columbia School!
WHERE: Allendale Columbia School, 519 Allens Creek Road, Rochester NY 14618
WHEN: Saturday, December 3, 2022 from 7 – 9 PM
Violinist Katha Zinn and pianist Illya Filshtinskiy will perform a program of classical and holiday music with the Allendale Columbia’s student choruses. Katha and Illya are Julliard-trained and play amazing music, a sampling of which can be seen on their YouTube channel.
Last week the used ambulance that we purchased in France with the help of our many donors arrived at the Kharkiv Regional Children’s Clinical Hospital #1, after being driven across Europe!
Our donors will be happy to know that an ambulance with Rochester markings is now in service in the streets of Kharkiv, transporting children to medical care.
Our good friends at RocMaidan contributed $5000 toward the purchase of this ambulance, and we are forever grateful for their donation and for their ongoing, tireless, generous service to the people of Ukraine.
The ambulance that our donors purchased for the Kharkiv Children’s Regional Hospital No. 1 will leave France for Ukraine stocked full of medical supplies. The Kharkiv Children’s Regional Hospital No. 1 treats children from the entire Kharkiv region (meaning the oblast beyond Kharkiv city). As they have the best pediatric surgery program, this is the hospital where all the children injured by shrapnel are admitted and cared for. When children are admitted, they literally live there with their parents for the duration of the admission. Unfortunately, many times children with war injuries are admitted suddenly, and the hospital is always running low on very basic supplies. When we contacted them to see what supplies we could best send, the list was heart-breaking: they need basic wound care supplies, but also children’s slippers, Q-tips, soap, and laundry detergent.
Dr. Oksana Leontieva, вічна памʼять.
On October 10, 2022 Dr. Oksana Leontieva, a pediatric hematologist-oncologist at the Ohmatdyt Children’s Hospital in Kyiv was one of those killed in yesterday’s russian missile attacks. News reports state that she was killed while driving to work after having dropped off her 5 year old son at kindergarten.
So many in Ukraine have lost their lives, and the loss of yet another colleague caring for sick children is very hard.