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22 May 2009 15:49

Kateryna Yushchenko Visits L’Ospedale Civile di Brescia Hospital in Italy

May 22, 2009, Head of the Supervisory Board of the Ukraine 3000 International Charitable Foundation Kateryna Yushchenko, being on a working trip in Italy, visited the L’Ospedale Civile di Brescia hospital in Brescia.

The working trip is taking place on an invitation from L.I.CO.S. Onlus international cooperation laboratory (Italy), which cooperates with Ukraine 3000 Foundation within the framework of its Hospital to Hospital program on the MELO project.

Among other participants of the event were Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Ukraine to Italy Heorhy Cherniavsky, Head of the Board of Directors of Ukraine 3000 Foundation Oleksandr Maksymchuk, Director of the Medical Programs Department Vira Pavliuk, Ukrainian and Italian doctors.

Mrs. Kateryna visited the maxillofacial surgery department, where two Ukrainian children are treated. She talked to them and their parents, as well as the hospital’s medical stuff and other patients.

Kateryna Yushchenko, Ukraine 3000 Foundation members, and Ukrainian doctors met with the L’Ospedale Civile di Brescia administration: head physician Cornelio Coppini, head children’s physician Raffaele Spiazzi, and leading doctors. The participants of the meeting talked about the cooperation between Ukrainian and Italian hospitals on the MELO project and shared their planc for the future.

The Italian-based L.I.CO.S. Onlus (Laboratorio Staliano perla Cooperarione allo Sviluppo) Laboratory for International Cooperation is operating in human rights development and children protection. The organization is involved in international cooperation, providing access to the European Union special funds, national and regional funds, international volunteering, and support to the arts and culture.
The cooperation between Ukraine 3000 Foundation and L.I.CO.S. Onlus started in late 2008. Since then, they have been fruitfully working together on the Hospital to Hospital program. In part, L.I.CO.S. representatives came to Ukraine on February 26 – March 10, 2009, visiting children’s hospitals in Zakarpattia, Ivano-Frankivsk, Lviv, and Rivne oblasts/

L.I.CO.S.’s involvement into the MELO project envisages creating a partners’ network of medical institutions, local administrations, and guardianship authorities, able to work for children both on city and oblast levels and on the national level. Also, as part of the project, children with serious pathologies receive urgent surgical treatment, psychological support and children neuropsychiatry centers are created for the younger patients, and trainings are held for college staff, students, and volunteers.

Seven little Ukrainians have already got their surgeries within the project’s framework. One of these surgeries, a tumor removal, is scheduled for today, May 22. It is planned that another four Ukrainian children will get their surgeries by the end of 2009.