The Survivor's Day
Newspaper "Udacha" (Simferopol), June,6, 1998.
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The Day of A Child's defense is a special holiday
for the Hemotologic Department of the Republican Children's Clinical Hospital
(Simferopol, Titova st.). June the 1st, known as "The Day of a recovered
Child" or "The Survivor's Day", is celebrated here for the
forth time. Sounds great, doesn't it? Still we have to verify the fact that
this celebration is for those who recovered from leukosis - cancer of the
blood - and other similar diseases that, until a few years ago, were considered
to be terminal. |
However some of them still belong to the incurable maladies. Yet they cure them here - on Titova street. Hematologists know what they defend children from every year. They defend them from death. Since Chernobyl, they have been saving kids' lives from the grip of death - lives that we pay for the "goods of civilization" and deteriorating ecology. No, they are magicians þ yet the results are 69% rate of survival with a diagnosis of 'acute leukemia'. Before 1991, the survival rate was only 3%
This year ten more ex-patients have passed the 5-year barrier since their last day in the hospital and were registered as
recovered. But this joyful holiday is not only for them. It is for the current patients of the hospital, those who take the hardest courses of chemotherapy. It is very important for these kids and their parents to see those who have gone through that .... to see and to believe in victory over this disease! Joyful laughter and smiles during the show are also effective therapy. Anatoliy Lyadnov, an actor,
cnown and loved by parents and kids as clown Tolyan has been coming to the hematology department for years. According to his version, clowns in the other countries are on staff.
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However ... the holiday is over. The weekdays in the Hematology Department are harsh. The little patients are stalked by a more horrible and dangerous enemy than blood cancer. It is the economic situation of the Department. The doctors, who work according to unique German methods and European standards, are facing the impossibility of continuing the treatment of the children! |
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They are running out of the most necessary equipment such as IV machines. There is no possibility to get them, for to bring the medicines and medical equipment into the country they have to pay for a certificate which is three times more than their actual worth. There is no possibility to get humanitarian aid, for according to Ukrainian laws we have to prove that the aid IS humanitarian. To do that is a long and exhausting process, even if they are in desperate need of money and equipment. Whether our children live tomorrow, go through the hardest blocks of chemotherapy, complete the 8-mounth hospital course of treatment and who only start their road of Calvary depends on them. There are many children with blood diseases in Ukraine, Crimea, at the end of the XX century. What will they do? What will those who may one day become patients of this Department do?
Yes, life is difficult for everyone. Yet what a dreadful picture ... having almost pulled a kid from the grips of death, knowing that the treatment may be successful and then to watch how he dies only because it is IMPOSSIBLE to complete the treatment. One should see the eyes of the chief of the Department Valentin Pavlovich Usachenko when he says: "If by the end of this mouth there aren't any changes we will have to close all of the German programs and go back to the treatment schemes we had used before 1991. From a 65% survival rate back to 3%.
HELP ! Help if you can! Children who win the fight against this terrible disease may die because of our negligence. Help Volodya Kourganov, who secretly, without telling his Mom, wrote a letter to the Yalta newspaper: "I do not want to die!". Help all the other little patients of the Hematological Department.
Help however you can. We need money, equipment, new contacts. Those who WANT to help may call the community of those parents whose children have leukemia.
Unfortunately it is impossible to call the Hematological Department itself, since the phone line has carefully been turned off for non-payment.
Andrey Trofimov