Saving the hearts of Amosov's young patients

This project was created and supported by Vodafone Ukraine's charity programme "A Good Deed as a Gift".

The mobile operator has created a mechanism for its subscribers to do good deeds easily. To help, it is enough to transfer any number of bonuses to charity. In turn, each subscriber receives them in the My Vodafone app, where their balance is displayed and they can be used for charity, among other things. The main goal of the charity initiative is to turn subscriber bonuses into saved hearts of little Ukrainians.

Congenital heart disease is one of the leading problems faced by hundreds of children every year. It is insidious and dangerous, because a visually healthy child is always at risk. And any ordinary seasonal illness or physical activity can be fatal. However, there is a simple and modern, but very expensive solution to this problem for ordinary Ukrainian families - the elimination of heart disease through endovascular surgery and the installation of a heart implant. The surgeries are performed without a chest incision, last a few hours, and the little patients of the Amosov Institute are discharged home on the third day. It is called an occluder. And the cost of heart implants can vary from UAH 41,000 to 119,000.

Thanks to this project, the lives of 4 children will be saved at once.

Mark Mrachkovsky, born on 01.04.2023 in Vinnytsia.  It became clear that the boy had health problems when Mark was less than a month old. One day he started to have trouble breathing. Then the boy spent two weeks in hospital, but the doctors were unable to establish a diagnosis.  He was diagnosed with a 4.0 mm patent ductus arteriosus at the age of 3 months. Makarchik is now a year old and since birth he has often been ill with complications, constantly feeling weak. The heart defect did not close on its own. Doctors advise him to undergo surgery as soon as possible. The cost of the occluder is too high for the family. Mark's mother is on maternity leave. His father lost his job when the war started. Mark also has an older brother. The family turned to us for help.

Burlay Svyatoslav, born 04.05.2022, Cherkasy region. Svyatoslav was born a healthy boy. A year ago, during a routine check-up, the family doctor detected a murmur in the child's heart. Then the boy underwent a heart ultrasound, but no visible defects were found. Now Svyatoslav is almost 2 years old. The boy is very active and loves to explore the world, but he often suffers from respiratory diseases and gets tired quickly. Sviatoslav was diagnosed with an open arterial duct of the heart a month ago. At a consultation at the Amosov National Institute of Cardiovascular Surgery, doctors said that the child's heart was already enlarged and that surgical treatment was needed as soon as possible. Svyatoslav's father is in the military, and his mother is on maternity leave.

Panchenko Oleksandra Ihorivna, born on 01.08.2018, from Poltava. During pregnancy, her mother was told that her child would have a heart defect. At the age of 6 months, little Sasha had her first seizures.  The girl was diagnosed with epilepsy and confirmed to have a heart defect - a secondary defect of the atrial septum. Due to the anticonvulsants she was taking, the cardiologists did not recommend a temporary surgery to install an occluder. Sasha has been undergoing regular check-ups in the hospital. Now the doctors have allowed the surgery to install the implant.  The mother cannot afford to buy an expensive implant for her daughter on her own. She cannot work because she spends all her time with her daughter. The father does not live with the family and has a disability. 

Beilik Solomiya, 20.10.2021, from Khmelnytskyi. A couple of weeks after Solomiia's birth, a local paediatrician told her mother about the murmurs in her baby's heart. After an ultrasound, doctors diagnosed an open arterial duct. The parents consulted different doctors because they could not decide on surgery, but all of them reported the need for surgical treatment. At the consultation at the Amosov National Institute, the doctors said that Solomiika's surgery was urgent. Solomiika is very smart, cheerful and playful. The girl loves music and dancing. But the disease hinders her. The family needed help to buy an occluder. The girl's mother is on maternity leave, and her father lost his job when the war started.