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RUSLANA TOURS CHILDREN'S HOSPITALS
Over the past month the popular Ukrainian recording artist Ruslana (Lyzhychko), winner of the 2004 Eurovision Song Festival toured children's hospitals in Lviv and in Dnipropetrovsk to promote humanitarian efforts designed to save children's lives.
On the invitation of the New Jersey based Children of Chornobyl Relief and Development Fund, Ruslana first visited the Regional Children's Clinical Hospital "Okhmatdyt" in the historic district of her hometown in Lviv. Ruslana was accompanied by the renowed German musician and film producer Peter Maffay and his film crew who documented the new technology and hospital improvements introduced by CCRDF. Maffay's film is scheduled to be broadcast on German television as part of national telethon this spring.
Visibly moved by the sight of premature infants struggling to overcome various complications, Ruslana commended the miraculous efforts to thoracic surgeon Dr. Roman Kovalsky and the neonatal specialists at the Lviv Okhmatdyt who have helped to save hundreds of babies with the help of respirators, pulse oximeters, and other intensive care and diagnostic equipment delivered by CCRDF. Most recently, with the aid of a grant from UMC, the Ukrainian mobile telecommunications company, CCRDF has installed more advanced technology that will enable Dr.Kovalsky and his staff to perform more complex open heart operations on children with congenital defects. The first operations will be carried out jointly with veteran surgeons from the Amosov Cardiac Surgery Institute in Kyiv.
On March 11, Ruslana made a surprise visit to the Dnipropetrovsk City Children's Hospital # 3 in central Ukraine. She took special pride in a new state-of-the-art Bear Cub 750 respirator that CCRDF had purchased with moneys raised during her benefit concert last May as part of the Eurovision festivities. According to Dr. Alexander Buyalsky, the director of the Newborn Intensive Care Unit in Dnipropetrovsk, this one respirator had already saved the lives of 21 infants in its first three months of operation. At current rates, the doctors expect this respirator to save 82 infants per year, and well over 1 000 during its operational lifespan. The respirator is adorned with a small poster of Ruslana to remind parents of their babie's benefactor.
With the help of the UMC grant, CCRDF has also provided the Dnipropetrovsk Hospital with an ultrasound, a Colin Monitor and a special urodynamic diagnostic system designed to help surgeons perform delicate operations to correct birth defects affecting the gastro-intestinal and urinary tracts and reproductive organs. Located in the industrial heartland of Ukraine and downstream from many pollution sources along the Dnipro River, the Dnipropetrovsk hospital has been forced to become a specialist in these types of unique procedures as environmental contaminants have caused a variety of unusual congenital malformations.
Ruslana was warmly greeted (and occasionally mobbed) by hospital staff and patients who asked for her autographs and thanked her for taking time out of her busy schedule to visit the hospital. The star of "Wild Dances" and many popular music videos promised to help raise more funds for the medical mission of CCRDF now that she has seen for herself the impact of the Fund's efforts.