President of the Foundation for Development of Ukraine Rinat Akhmetov initiated launch of national project "Cancer Can Be Cured. Timely Cancer Diagnostics and Treatment in Ukraine" The project envisages the Foundation to buy equipment for cancer treatment that is unmatched in Ukraine. The total project budget amounts to UAH 200m.

UAH 100m of the total budget will be spent on buying positron emission tomography (PET) facility, a gamma camera, and a cyber knife for the Donetsk Tumour Center. The PET and gamma camera will significantly improve the quality of cancer diagnostics, help detect the disease at early stages and therefore provide a timely treatment. A cyber knife will help perform successful treatment of different tumour types (cancer tumours in the first line) without operations, pain, in an out-patient treatment mode, and without traditional rehabilitation treatment.

Rinat Akhmetov, President of the Foundation for Development of Ukraine, said: “Ukraine has registered 910,267 people with cancer. Every year adds another 160,000, with 90,000 dying of the disease. It’s terrible. The question is what to do? The only possible answer is not to give up, fight and prevail”.

A new radiation centre with another PET facility as well as new diagnostic and therapy equipment will be established in the National Institute of Cancer (Kiev). The Foundation for Development of Ukraine has provided UAH 50m to meet the goal, while another UAH 50m will be spent to fight cancer in the Western Ukraine. The targets of the funding will be announced soon. The project implementation term is one year. The centre will be accepting first patients in a year.

Anatoliy Zabolotny, Director of the Foundation for Development of Ukraine, said to Кореспондент.net: “We are giving this equipment to state-run hospitals that are working for the ordinary citizens. It does not mean that we are simply handing it over to them. We will ensure control and accessibility of the services for those who need them.

Korrespondent.net
10 July, 2008