Ukraine's first lady visits Staten Island University Hospital (09/28/97)

Ukraine's first lady visits Staten Island University Hospital

by Irene Jarosewich

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. - Liudmyla Kuchma, wife of the president of Ukraine, traveled to the southernmost borough of New York City, Staten Island, to formally thank the staff and board of directors of Staten Island University Hospital for the donation of a diagnostic laboratory and medications, as well as the establishment of a physicians' training effort and the initiation of a program to support designated orphanages in Ukraine.

Staten Island University Hospital (SIUH), ranked as one of the best teaching hospitals in the U.S., is donating a complete diagnostic laboratory that will be set up in Kyiv at a specialized facility, the Center for the Protection of Maternal and Child Health (known in Ukraine as "Okhmadit"). The hospital will also begin a program to support the professional training of two doctors from Ukraine for six months, who will travel to SIUH to study primary care and geriatric medicine.

In addition, members of the University Physicians' Group affiliated with the hospital have pledged to donate $150 per year, per child to support approximately 65 orphans from newborn to age 3.

Five years ago, Dr. Eugene Holuka, a young physician of Ukrainian heritage, who is affiliated with SIUH, provided some medications to a patient from Ukraine whom he was treating. From this relatively modest beginning, a broader program of aid has been developed.

Dr. Holuka is credited by the staff and board of SIUH with generating the momentum to bring about this current donation (the lab equipment is valued at approximately $200,000), as well as facilitating the beginning of the teaching program and the orphan-support initiative. He was given an award earlier this year by President Kuchma in recognition of his many years of work to bring medical equipment and medications to Ukraine.

After a tour of the hospital during the morning of September 23, approximately 60 people attended a luncheon for Mrs. Kuchma, co-hosted by Staten Island Assemblywoman Elizabeth Connelley and Barbara Varone, wife of SIUH president and CEO, Rick J. Varone.

Greeting the guests, Mr. Varone promised that SIUH will "build a bridge between Staten Island and Ukraine ... and though it will be a long one ... [it will be] based on good feelings and the desire to help others."

Mrs. Kuchma, in a warm and sincere greeting that touched her audience, expressed her gratitude for the donation made by the hospital, and expressed her admiration for the facilities of SIUH, which has been listed among the top 100 hospitals in the U.S. by industry reports.

She also directly addressed representatives of Johnson and Johnson, who were attending the luncheon, with a personal promise: upon hearing that the corporation was hesitant about making donations to Ukraine for fear that their products would end up on the black market, and not in the hands of intended recipients, Mrs. Kuchma pledged that for all donations sent through her authority, she would personally guarantee that the donation would reach those for whom it was intended.

Mrs. Kuchma was in New York City as a member of a delegation from Ukraine that includes President Kuchma and other high-ranking Ukrainian officials attending the 52nd session of the General Assembly of the United Nations. Hennadii Udovenko, Ukraine's foreign affairs minister, was elected as president of the 52nd session on September 16.

Mrs. Kuchma's schedule also included the season's opening night performance of "Carmen" at New York City's Metropolitan Opera, also attended by President Bill Clinton and Hillary Rodham Clinton, as well as other international dignitaries, and a trip to Hyde Park, N.Y., to view President Franklin Roosevelt's family home and Presidential Library, as well as the nearby Vanderbilt mansion.

Accompanying Mrs. Kuchma on her visit to SIUH was Dina Udovenko, wife of the president of the U.N. General Assembly, and Liudmyla Zlenko, wife of Ukraine's Permanent Representative to the U.N. Anatolii Zlenko.

On September 24, the delegation continued to Mexico for an official visit.

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