Henry Ford Health System supports medical care in Lviv (02/22/98)

Henry Ford Health System supports medical care in Lviv

DETROIT - First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton recently traveled to Ukraine and saw first-hand how the Henry Ford Health System is working to improve the care for at-risk newborns and premature infants in Ukraine.

Mrs. Clinton, along with Ukraine's First Lady Liudmila Kuchma, toured the Lviv Regional Clinical Hospital on November 17, 1997. Accompanied by Sudhakar Ezhuthachan, M.D., head of the neonatology division at Henry Ford Hospital, and Christine Newman, R.N., a neonatal clinical nurse specialist at Henry Ford Hospital, the first ladies visited the hospital's neonatal resuscitation training center and neonatal intensive care unit.

"It was exciting for us to have the opportunity to show Mrs. Clinton first-hand the impact our program has in saving the lives of Ukrainian babies," said Dr. Ezhuthachan.

Mrs. Clinton and Mrs. Kuchma also were on hand for the donation of a $27,000 ambulance donated by the Ford Motor Company's national importer, Winner of Ukraine, and Henry Ford Health System. The ambulance carries an infant transporter donated by the Ukrainian Village of Warren, Mich. Before the donation of the transporter, babies born in critical condition often died in rural hospitals due to cold stress and lack of oxygen. (During the visit, a second ambulance was donated by the Children of Chornobyl Relief Fund to the Lviv Regional Specialized Pediatric Clinic.)

In 1993, the Henry Ford Health System and the Lviv Regional Clinical Hospital formed a partnership to improve overall neonatal care in western Ukraine and to provide equipment, training and education. The infant mortality rate in the Lviv area has declined about 30 percent since the partnership began.

Dr. Ezhuthachan and Ms. Newman of Henry Ford visit the Lviv Regional Clinical Hospital twice a year. They facilitate training for the hospital's staff and, in January of this year, officially opened the resuscitation training center in which more than 400 pediatricians, obstetricians, nurses and midwives have been certified. Maternity hospitals where staff have been extensively trained in resuscitation have demonstrated more than a 65 percent improvement in short-term neurological outcomes.

Members of the Ukrainian staff also come to Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit for training in neonatal intensive care. Additionally, Henry Ford has been involved in training staff from Kyiv, Odesa, Donetsk and Kharkiv, where similar neonatal resuscitation centers are being implemented.

The Lviv Regional Clinical Hospital/Henry Ford Health System partnership also is supported by the American International Health Alliance (AIHA) and U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). The Ukrainian Village, a not-for-profit housing corporation based in Warren, Mich., also has helped pay for special equipment.

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