Ukraine shows the highest cancer mortality in Europe.

STUDIO: Ukraine shows the highest cancer mortality in Europe with 90,000 people dying of this terrible disease every year. The number of recoveries is 2.5 times less compared to Europe and the USA because of poor material and technical facilities. The government has allocated UAH 30m on acquisition of cancer equipment this year. It’s definitely impossible to defeat cancer with such financial support, doctors say.

REPORT by Anna Suryadnova: Galina Ivanovna has been living in Kyiv Cancer Institute for 11 months so far. Her five-year-old son is being treated here. A year ago Misha started complaining about loins pain. The diagnosis sounded like a sentence. The boy had a tumour above kidney”.

SOUNDBITE: Galina Tymkiv: "Operation was successful and everything is fine. The tumour was fully removed. But bone marrow remained uncured. It’s very hard. You do your best to stay firm, then you lose patience. You feel sorry not only for your child but other children too. It’s really hard".

REPORT: Misha has seen much suffering this year and made up his mind what profession to choose in future.

SOUNDBITE WITHOUT TITLES: “I want to be a doctor”.

REPORT: Doctors believe they could diagnose malignant cancer tumours earlier and thus make them harmless if Ukraine had modern equipment. The best facility today is a positron emission tomography (PET) scanner. While Paris has two dozens of them, Ukraine has none. Yet some will appear in a year. Rinat Akhmetov has donated $40m for that.

SOUNDBITE: Igor Shchepotin, Director of the National Institute of Cancer: "We plan to build a new radiology complex with up-to-date diagnostic and treatment equipment that will show specific disease stages, detect tumour early, and provide effective treatment applying the latest methods".

SOUNDBITE: Rinat Akhmetov, President of the Foundation for Development of Ukraine: “Maintenance, this won't be your problem either, it will be our common problem. And we will tackle it together”.

REPORT: The charity concert of Paul McCartney organized by Viktor Pinchuk Foundation collected another UAH 4m for the needs of Children’s Cancer Hospital.

SOUNDBITE: Paul McCartney, singer: "I want to thank everybody who helped make this show such a special event. Thank you so much!"

Svoyevremenno. O Glavnom Program
10 July, 2008  19:17-19:19:58