SURGICAL TEAM TRIPS
The children’s hospital in Simferopol has 400 beds, many of which have been occupied by seriously ill children, some of them orphans, for months or even years. See the Yana and Hope page. The hospital has been only home for these children, as the orphanage staff cannot manage their care. It is rare that they leave the hospital grounds in their life.
We organize trips to Crimea, Ukraine, for U.S. medical specialists needed by the children. As soon as the surgeons arrive they see the children proposed for surgery. Then they set up their schedule with the local surgeons. The surgeries are all done on orphans or children under state guardianship. Generally we do not operate on children with parents because they have an advocate for their needs.
Our first efforts to assess medical needs in Ukraine began with three groups of medical doctors [1998, 1999, 2001] traveling to the orphanages to help assess their medical needs and the potential of certain programs.
In March 2007, May 2008, April 2010 and April 2011 the foundation organized groups of surgeons who, at their own expense, traveled to Republic Children’s Hospital in Simferopol, Crimea, Ukraine to both perform surgeries and share with local surgeons surgical techniques of a highly specialized nature.
The result of these surgeries has been the opening of a pathway towards adoption for these orphans, who would have been denied that hope because of an infirmity.
