Free Accommodation for Kids with Cancer in Ukraine

Dear friends,

thank you for supporting Center for Kids Affected by Cancer Dacha!

This center provides free of change accommodation not only for families with kids who either continue treatment or come for follow up visits but to fathers or grandparents who come to help mothers who are usually staying at the hospital with their kids. Why is it important? Let me explain.

Patients of the Institute of Cancer are often prescribed with so called high dose chemotherapy which requires 21 of stay in a closed sterile room for both a child and a mother. They cannot leave the room because the child’s immune system is at its minimum. Only nurses wearing a special uniform can enter the room. The problem is that the hospital doesn’t provide such patients with almost anything except chemotherapy drugs. There are no additional medicines and no appropriate food. That’s why it is so important to have a person outside who can rush from one pharmacy to another to find all the necessary medical materials, prepare healthy well cooked meals and bring them to the hospital three times a day or even more, wash clothes and bring clean ones… This role is often performed by the fathers.

One of such fathers is Oleg who stays at the Center Dacha. Oleg and his family come from Mariupol. The city is very close to the frontline and had its fair share of troubled times. More than once they had to leave their home and seek refuge at their relatives’ from other regions of Ukraine. When Oleg’s son Vlad started feeling bad the closest hospital with good equipment was in Donetsk, the occupied territory. The doctors found a tumor and recommended to go to Kyiv for treatment. Now little Vlad undergoes high dose chemo. Every day Oleg is very busy. He finds all the medicines the doctors prescribe and prepares meals. He explains that during such treatment children usually don’t want to eat at all but they have to do it in order to be strong. That’s why he has to cook not only healthy dishes without excessive fats but also something that his son likes to eat. Oleg does his best to take care of his son and his wife.

Thanks to your contributions Oleg and other fathers like him have a place to stay free of charge, so they can devote themselves to fighting for their beloved kids’ lives.