Oncologists and parents of children with cancer hope for state's help in creating bone marrow transplant centers
Kyiv, February 15 (Interfax-Ukraine) – Oncologists and parents of children with cancer have said that in the absence of bone marrow transplant centers in Ukraine is one of the main problems in treatment of such diseases, and said they hope the problem will be resolved at a state level.
"The state must find funds to create one, two, or maybe, three centers for bone marrow transplants in Ukraine. These [centers] may be [in] Lviv, Kyiv, Kharkiv, Dnipropetrovsk, Odesa… The next step is to create a bank of donors [of bone marrow] and our state's joining the register of European and world donors," Director of Medical Institute of Sumy State University, Professor and Honorary President of the Sumy Regional Charity Fund providing assistance to children with cancer" Vitaliy Markevych has said at a press conference at Interfax-Ukraine on Friday.
He said that bone marrow transplant operations are conducted in foreign clinics, including Russia and Belarus. The cost of an operation in Belarus for a Ukrainian child totals about EUR 150,000, while for local children they are free of charge.
President of Sumy Regional Charity Fund and Ph.D. (Medicine) Valentyna Markevych, in turn, said she hopes that this issue could be resolved in the near future.
"At present all this could be done [opening of centers of bone marrow transplantation]. Many issues have to be resolved for this. Today morning Volodymyr [Lytvyn, a Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine] encouraged me with his proposal to elaborate together with lawyers a resolution on the creation of transplant centers [and] to vote [for this resolution] in the Verkhovna Rada immediately," she said.
Mothers of children having cancer were present at the press conference and noted a number of difficult problems which parents and children face during the treatment of this disease – starting from the verification of a diagnosis and ending with physical and psychological rehabilitation after an expensive course of treatment.