UAV prepares 35th medical shipment to Ukraine (06/16/96)

UAV prepares 35th medical shipment to Ukraine

by Khristina Lew

LINDEN, N.J. - Ukrainian American Veterans and volunteers gathered at a warehouse here on June 10 to load a sea-going container with medical supplies bound for hospitals in Ukraine.

Seventeen men in their 60s and 70s hauled mattresses and boxes full of hospital gowns from one end of the Meest America warehouse to the gaping mouth of a 4,000-cubic-foot tractor trailer/container, packing what will be the 35th shipment of donated goods valued at $8 million in the nationwide UAV Adopt a Hospital program.

Launched in 1993 by the New Jersey State Department of the UAV, the Adopt a Hospital program has shipped 322 tons of medical equipment and supplies donated by hospitals in New Jersey and New York to hospitals and medical schools in Zaporizhzhia, Chortkiv, Ternopil, Lviv, Dnipropetrovske and Krasnohorivka, Ukraine. This latest shipment and the 36th, scheduled for packing on June 17, will benefit hospitals in Brody, Ukraine.

The program solicits used hospital equipment such as respirators, X-ray machines, dental chairs and operating tables, and ships the donated goods to Ukraine through a State Department program that assists the newly independent states of the former Soviet Union. The donated items are distributed by UAV contacts in Ukraine and target hospitals that treat children victims of Chornobyl. To date, the UAV has shipped over $8 million worth of medical supplies.

"This campaign has injected us with vitality," said Dr. Julian Bemko, commander of Post 6 in Newark-Irvington, N.J., and a member of the Adopt a Hospital program board of directors.

Each container costs the Ukrainian American Veterans $400 to prepare for shipment. "The amount of aid we've managed to ship has cost us half a penny to move a pound," said Borys Gulay of Post 25 in Trenton, N.J., who heads the Adopt a Hospital program.

UAV volunteers canvass hospitals like St. Barnabas Medical Center in Livingston, N.J., and St. Luke's in New York City for equipment, and usually load the donated goods into their container right out of the hospital's side doors.

Donated items from companies, medical and dental offices that couldn't be loaded directly from the premises into a container, such as computers and medical books, however, posed a problem. The program's board of directors, which in addition to Mr. Gulay and Dr. Bemko include Harold Bochonko, Post 7 in New York, and Michael Fedirko, Julian Helbig, Steve Yacus, Walter Bodnar and Victor Romanyshyn of Post 6, approached Meest America in Linden eight months ago for help.

Adam Stec, director of Meest America, a company that ships to Ukraine, offered space in his warehouse free of charge, and on June 10, the Ukrainian American Veterans recognized Mr. Stec's goodwill by presenting him with their highest honor, a sword from Zaporizhzhia.

The hundreds of boxes of medical supplies heading for Brody were blessed by the Rev. Robert Hitchens of St. Vladimir Ukrainian Catholic Church in Elizabeth, N.J. Bohdan Yaremenko, representing Ukraine's Consulate General of New York, stopped by to observe the activity.

The Ukrainian American Veterans are already preparing for their 37th shipment, tentatively earmarked for hospitals in Kharkiv.

For more information or to make a donation to the UAV-Adopt a Hospital program contact: Dr. Julian Bemko, 57 Independence Way, Convent Station, NJ 07961.

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