Our work with the sick children started off with helping children who are suffering from cancer. Thanks to your kind help some of the children patients have lived to become adults and have been transferred to the adult hospital. That’s when they were unpleasantly surprised. Substantial assistance in recent years coming from the public and the government has allowed the Children’s Haematology Unit to purchase expensive drugs and equipment. At the same time the adult Oncology Unit can only dream of modern equipment and donations.
Treating people whilst putting their own health at risk by being exposed to the most toxic chemotherapeutic agents is an everyday reality for the medical staff of the Haematology Unit of the Zaporozhye Regional Clinical Hospital. Every time nurses open a vial of a cancer drug, they inhale a substantial dose of chemicals. These chemicals are so toxic that people who receive treatment lose their hair, incur damage to their mucus membrane and a drop in blood values. Unfortunately, these side effects (albeit to a lesser extent) are also experienced by nurses who handle the chemotherapeutic agents. This is happening right now, not a century ago! A trivial addition to the salary to compensate for the dangerous working conditions is hardly worth it when one is losing health after just a few years of working there!
It’s possible to minimise an effect of the toxic chemicals on staff. This can be achieved by handling them within the cabinets equipped with exhaust fume hoods. Basically, it’s a cabinet with the front made of glass (to be able to see manipulations inside) and a powerful hood installed at the top to remove the tiniest vapours and drops of harmful substances. There are also special fully isolated cabinets with manipulation gloves (ie. “sleeves” built into the front panel). They allow the staff to avoid any contact with the toxic chemotherapeutic agents. All of this equipment is available out there, but… not in the Haematology Unit of the Regional Clinical Hospital…
Head of the Unit, Boris Borisovich, shared his concerns about this situation with us. Having realised how serious a need for the hood cabinets is, we are reaching out to you now. We are asking for your help to preserve health of the people responsible for the treatment of adult cancer patients. The cost of this improvement isn’t high compared to the price of health. 8.000 hryvnyas (that is around 985 US dollars) is nothing compared to the safety of nurses, but, alas, this money cannot be spared by the hospital’s budget. And, as always in situations like this, we rely on your help, dear donors! Please help us protect the medical staff of the Haematology Unit from toxic chemicals!
You can support the Haematology Unit of the Regional Clinical Hospital by transferring funds to the Fund’s account with a reference “Charitable donation for the purchase of medical equipment”.
For more information please contact the “Happy Child” Fund.
