Ukraine to Help Fund Cuban Program for Chernobyl Children

[Mika]

Ukraine to Help Fund Cuban Program for Chernobyl Children
http://www.ahora.cu/english/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1562&Itemid=28

The Cuban treatment program for children affected by the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant disaster will celebrate its 20th anniversary in 2010.
In a recent visit to the island, Ihor Hrushko, director general of the Americas and Europe department at the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry, told JR that what he was very impressed with what he saw in Tarará, the town where the program’s facilities are located.

“This has been a great help and my country really appreciates it. We are very grateful to Cuba. Even in the harshest years of the Special Period, with the shortages Cuba had, it never stopped the program,” said Hrushko.

Hrushko said that the Ukraine has experienced an economic recovery in recent years and added that the Ukrainian Parliament has just passed a resolution to aid Cuba with the program for children affected by the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant accident. To this end, he said, US$ 800,000 will be assigned each year.

“We want to strengthen relations of friendship and mutual respect between the two nations. In this sense, we are very pleased with the results of the political consultations held with Cuban diplomats,” said Ihor Hrushko.

The Ukrainian official also spoke about the historical ties between the Ukraine and Cuba, which have existed for more than 40 years. “When we were part of the Soviet Union, many Ukrainian people were here in the trenches in the 1960s, and then thousands came to work along with the Cuban people to develop the national economy.”

Regarding economic cooperation between the two countries, Hrushko spoke about the agreement to set up a workshop in Cienfuegos to repair the Ukrainian Kraz trucks (widely known as KP3), which are still being used in Cuba.

“We are also discussing the possibility of setting up a plant to assemble railcars in Cuba. The parts would come from the Ukraine and Cubans would assemble them here, and then export them to third countries, especially in Latin America. Another similar project is under discussion involving Ukrainian Antonov aircrafts. To this end, a delegation of Ukrainian aviation specialists is planning a trip to Cuba. We have designed new models and this could be interesting for the Cuban economy...especially since the US blockade makes it impossible for Cuba to acquire western aviation technology since most have some US components, and the planes, built in the Ukraine, are 100 percent Ukrainian.”

[Judi Lynn]

1. This is impressive news. Cuba has born the responsibility for reclamation of the well being

of so many victims of that disaster already, with no move whatsoever, as Ihor Hrushko said, to gain any compensation for their hard work for them.

From a post placed here in 2005 by DU'er Say_What:

Ukraine Thanks Cuba For Chernobyl Children Care
<clips>

Cuba has treated 18,153 children victims of the radiation fallout from the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear power plant disaster, Ukraine's Health Minister Nykola Polischuk said on Tuesday.

For 15 years, children from Chernobyl have traveled to Cuba to be treated free of cost by Cuban doctors at the beach resort of Tarara, on the eastern outskirts of Havana.

The pale, sometimes bald, strikingly beautiful children can often be seen playing joyfully on the beach and splashing in the warm Caribbean sea.

They have been treated for cancers, kidney and thyroid ailments, digestive and nervous disorders, and the loss of hair and skin pigmentation.

"At a difficult moment for the people of Ukraine, Cuba was one of the first to extend a helping hand with health care for the children," Polischuk said at a ceremony marking the 15th anniversary of the Cuban program.

More:
http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/30132/story.htm

Thread on the subject:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x1352096

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In Cuba, Chernobyl kids get special care, and hope
Thursday, April 27, 2006

by Isabel Sanchez

TARARA, Cuba (AFP): Far from his native Ukraine, Mikhail -- his frail body tanned, a sea breeze caressing his hairless head -- is one of many in Cuba fighting after-effects of the Chernobyl disaster's fallout, in the biggest such program of its kind.

He is one of 22,000 people -- including 18,546 children from Ukraine, Belarus and Russia -- treated for radiation-related pathologies since March 29, 1990 at the Tarara Pediatric Hospital just outside Havana.

"All of my hair fell out, and it hasn't come back. I am in Cuba trying to get it to grow again," the 12-year-old explains matter-of-factly on the doorstep of his simple home near the beach.

Every morning since he arrived in Cuba December 9, he has put his bare head under a lamp that delivers infrared rays to his scalp, slicked with pilotrophine, a Cuban product derived from placenta used in alopecia treatments.

Dimitri, 14, explains how his treatment, for vitiligo, includes melagenine -- also placenta-derived -- as well as a long daily dose of sun, sand and sea.

They are Chernobyl kids who were not even born when the disaster at reactor number four in Ukraine, near the border with Belarus in the former Soviet Union, took place two decades ago.

Many suffer from thyroid cancer, leukemia, vitiligo, psoriasis, scoliosis, muscular atrophy or neurological ailments; they get treatment based on the seriousness of their illness, sometimes 45 days, sometimes three or six months, or even a year.

"We think that genetic malformations are going to start now. Twenty years have gone by and we still don't know what all the consequences will be. Many of them suffer from anxiety disorders because they do not know how long they will live," explains Maria Teresa Oliva, 51, a pediatrician in management at the facility.

"But with effort and dedication, we are helping them," she says.

The program, which over 16 years has seen 15 people die, and carried out six bone marrow transplants on leukemia patients, was not abandoned even during Cuba's staggering economic crisis of the 1990s after it lost all economic support from the former eastern bloc.

"There are several programs to help these children, but none as large or systematic as Cuba's. More than one half recover, and a third improved their medical conditions," said Ukrainian Health Minister Yuri Poliachenko.

More:
http://www.caribbeannetnews.com/cgi-script/csArticles/articles/000013/001395.htm

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HEALTH: Chernobyl Kids Keep Arriving in Cuba
By Patricia Grogg*

HAVANA, May 7 (IPS/IFEJ) - Thousands of kilometres from Ukraine, where the worst nuclear accident in history occurred 23 years ago, the sun and fresh air of a Cuban beach provide therapy for Ukrainian children, who continue to be born with problems stemming from the disaster.

The day was just beginning on Apr. 26, 1986, when Reactor 4 exploded at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, then part of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. According to witnesses, the explosion sent the temperature up to a searing 2,500 degrees, melting everything nearby. A cloud of radioactive dust spread over much of Europe.

The radiation released during the disaster caused a wide range of ills among the population, like cancer and birth defects.

Four years later, children and teenagers from the disaster area began arriving in Cuba. The first 139 were the beginning of a vast aid project that has now benefited more than 24,000 people. According to Cuban authorities, this help will continue as long as Ukraine needs it.

Cuba’s Chernobyl children’s programme - which until 1992 also received patients from Russia and Belarus - is centred in Tarará, some 20 km east of the capital, and includes a small hospital, a school with Ukrainian teachers and several dozen comfortable housing units.

"From here they move through our entire health system, depending on their needs," said director Julio Medina. That was his explanation for not making dollar estimates of the assistance that Cuba provides free of cost.

"The important thing is to provide all the medical attention that these children and young people need," he said.

The project operates through an agreement between the two countries' health ministries. Medina also mentioned the participation of the International Fund for Chernobyl, a Ukraine-based non-governmental organisation that estimates Cuba's expenditures to be 350 million dollars in medications alone.

Ukraine covers transportation, while room and board and medical services provided in Cuba are covered by the host country.

The patients themselves are aware of the costs. "In my country, the treatment that my son receives would cost 80,000 euros (105,362 dollars)," said Natalia Kisilova, mother of Mikhail Kisilov, a 15-year-old boy who was born with one outer ear and auditory canal missing.

Doctors involved with the programme that work in Ukraine assessed his case and sent him here two years ago. Cuban professionals immediately began treatment to correct the deformity.

More:
http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=46754

http://www.cubaheadlines.com.nyud.net:8090/files/cubaheadlines.com/imagenes/ni%C3%B1os%20de%20chern0bil.jpg

http://cache.daylife.com.nyud.net:8090/imageserve/00je5yK0rA5XZ/610x.jpg

Reuters Pictures 1 month ago
Ukranian boy Eugene, 7, a victim of radiation fallout from the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster, plays table tennis at the Pediatric Hospital in Tarara, outside of Havana, April 1, 2009. For the past 19 years, Cuba has been providing free health treatment to around 24,000 child victims of the Chernobyl explosion in Ukraine.


http://cache.daylife.com.nyud.net:8090/imageserve/01xp07lghd3QC/610x.jpg

Reuters Pictures 1 month ago
Ukranian girl Annia, 11, a victim of radiation fallout from the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster, sits in an office at the Pediatric Hospital in Tarara, outside Havana, April 1, 2009. For the past 19 years, Cuba has been providing free health treatment to around 24,000 child victims of the Chernobyl explosion in Ukraine.

http://cache.daylife.com.nyud.net:8090/imageserve/095f0Dggr60IJ/340x.jpg

Reuters Pictures 1 month ago
A Ukranian girl who is a victim of the radiation fallout from the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster, walks with her mother at the Pediatric Hospital in Tarara, outside of Havana, April 1, 2009. For the past 19 years, Cuba has been providing free health treatment to around 24,000 child victims of the Chernobyl explosion in Ukraine.

- Book -

http://www.trishmarx.com.nyud.net:8090/images/bookcovers/iheal.jpg

I Heal, The Children of Chernobyl in Cuba

Co-Author: Dorita Beh-Eger
Photographer: Cindy Karp
Publisher: Lerner Publications Company
Book Description: Elena Balushko was only two years old on April 26, 1986, so she doesn’t remember the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. But on that day, one of the four nuclear reactors at Chernobyl in Ukraine exploded, sending thousands of tons of radioactive powder into the atmosphere. The Chernobyl accident was the worst nuclear disaster in history.
When Elena was nine years old, a tumor started to grow behind her eye. Elena’s mother took her to many doctors in Kiev, but they all said the same thing – Elena needed an operation right away, but there was no room in the Kiev hospitals. That was when Elena and her mother heard about Tarara, Cuba.
This is the story of the more than 13,000 children of Chernobyl who have been treated in Cuba, as told through the eyes of Elena and her friends.
“My mama says that here in Tarara more than my tumor has been healed,” said Elena. “She said that here in Tarara my spirit has been healed, too.”

[Mika]

2. Impressive indeed!

Thanks for all of those links, Judi Lynn. :thumbsup: :thumbsup:

What a reminder of how generous the Cuban people are, in the name of humanity, friendship and solidarity with the least among us on this planet!

Viva Cuba.

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[Judi Lynn]

3. Mika, one of the first things I ever read about the Cuban program was their belief judicious doses

of sunlight every day on the beach, wading in the water, was a very important part of their healing. It's hard to know if it's only a physical benefit alone, or if the actual psychological lift sick people can get from beautiful sunlight, warmth, the ocean, fresh air also enter into it as a spiritual/psychological response which opens the door invisibly to better healing.

Funny, isn't it, that we've NEVER gotten even an acknowledgement in any of our corporate media of any of the hard work Cuban medical people do for huge numbers of people? They are famous all over the world, except for the U.S. for their ceaseless work to improve the lot of the world's suffering people, NOT stuffing the coffers even fuller for the world's greedy, anal misanthropes, like our corporate visionaries here!