President of the Foundation for Development of Ukraine Rinat Akhmetov has initiated launch of national project Cancer Can Be Cured. Timely Cancer Diagnostics and Treatment in Ukraine.

The projects provides for the Foundation to buy equipment for cancer treatment that is unmatched in Ukraine. The total project budget amounts to UAH 200m.

Ukrainian statistics committee has registered 910,267 people with cancer. Every year adds 160,000, with 90,000 dying of the disease.

"I ask myself – how can I help?", says Rinat Akhmetov, President of the Foundation for Development of Ukraine.

"On the one hand, there are good and top-skilled doctors, on the other hand – limited technical capacities. I think you are aware that cancer morbidity in Europe and the USA is higher compared to Ukraine, while the mortality is lower. It’s terrible".

"The question is what to do? The only possible answer is not to give up, fight, and prevail", he believes.

In his view, sufficient funds must be invested in early diagnostics and effective treatment to make it real.

According to Rinat Akhmetov, UAH 100m of the provided budget will be spent on buying a 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.

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.

Anatoliy Zabolotny, Director of the Foundation for Development of Ukraine, said that the centres will be accepting first patients in a year. "This is the shortest possible term for such high-tech equipment. A tender on equipment supply will be announced soon and construction of new facilities will start. The process will be entirely transparent and clear for everyone".

Oboz is inviting everyone willing and capable to take part in the hard but good cause of investing money in early cancer diagnostics and effective treatment in Ukraine.

The era of charity has arrived!

By Lena Krechmer

Date of publication: 11 July, 2008 13:49

Source: Obozrevatel