“Targeted assistance”: fifty thousand stories of saved lives

Today, Kyiv held the event “Donbas and Civilians. Reporting event of the Rinat Akhmetov Foundation and Humanitarian Center for the year 2017”, where the latest data on the assistance provided by the Humanitarian Center to the inhabitants of Donbas were presented.

“Targeted assistance” is one of the first large programs of the Rinat Akhmetov Foundation, which operates for 12 years. The main principle of its work is to help here and now, and the main priority is to provide assistance when it comes to the life and health of children. This task was set by Rinat Akhmetov. Anastasia Kladova, Head of the “Targeted Assistance” Program, told about it today.

“The Humanitarian Center was established on August 6, 2014 to provide maximum assistance to the affected civilians of Donbas; “Targeted Assistance” has become part of the largest humanitarian mission in the country,” Kladova said. “With the outbreak of hostilities in Donbas, a number of state programs, thanks to which, for example, children, patients with asthma, diabetes, epilepsy were receiving the necessary medications, no longer operated in the non-government-controlled territories. Families with seriously ill children were left alone with their misfortune.”

Anastasia Kladova also noted that it is for the provision of vitally important drugs for seriously ill children that the “Medications for Children” Project operates. Families with such children receive free kits of medications for three months. Within this Project, more than 3,500 kits of medications have been issued.

In February 2017, the Rinat Akhmetov Humanitarian Center launched the “Healthy Heart” Project.

“In Ukraine, 4.5 thousand children with heart disease are born each year. Only half of them receive timely medical assistance,” Anastasia Kladova emphasized. “A small implant, an occluder, can save children with heart disease, but the device costs one hundred thousand UAH, and it is too much for many parents.”

The uniqueness of such an operation is that it is performed by the endovascular method, without cavitary intervention. Then the young patient can forget about the diagnosis forever and quickly recover. Thanks to the “Healthy Heart” Project, 35 children received a new heart.

Anastasia Kladova noted that today’s Donbas is one of the most mined regions of the planet. According to UNICEF, today in eastern Ukraine, 220,000 children are at a daily risk of getting killed or becoming disabled. They go to school, play and live constantly risking their lives, as everything is covered with mines and other ammunition.

“The Rinat Akhmetov Humanitarian Center is the only organization that has been systematically providing assistance for treatment and rehabilitation of injured children since the first days of military operations in the region. The help is provided in form of medications, expendable materials for operations, and means of recovery. But after urgent operations and prosthetics, the children need not only physical, but also psychological rehabilitation. Therefore, the “Rehabilitation of Injured Children" Project operates. During this time, 80 victims received assistance. Many of them were able to return to a full life,” Kladova said.