The city of Dnepropetrovsk has to accommodate a big number of refugees, among them many people with chronic diseases, for example chronic kidney failure. Such patients depend on a regular treatment with a hemodialysis machine. This is an artificial kidney removing all the toxic substances normally washed out from the blood by the kidneys and transported to the urine. If the kidneys no longer work normally, this task has to be done by an artificial pumping and filtrating system. For this hemodialysis treatment, the patient has to come to the hemodialysis department of a hospital three times a week for four hours.

Dnepropetrovsk municipal hospital Nr.4 is a big hospital with a well-equipped large hemodialysis station. However, this station is calculated for the normal number of patients in the city and its environments, not for the huge additional workload resulting from the big number of refugees with chronic kidney diseases urgently needing treatment with hemodialysis. After a careful evaluation of the situation together with the specialists of Hospital Nr.4, the Humanitarian Aid Section of the Government of Switzerland decided to donate five Hemodialysis Machines and the necessary material to run the equipment to the Hospital. With these machines, at least 30 patients can be treated and thus be prevented from dying of renal failure. Most of those patients so far could only be dialyzed once or twice per week (instead of three times), which leads to a fast decay of general health.

On June 22, 2015 the five Hemodialysis Machines were handed over by representatives of the Swiss Government to the authorities of Dnepropetrovsk Hospital Nr.4.

The total amount of the current Swiss humanitarian assistance in Dnipropetrovsk hospital No 4 is CHF 200 thousand (or more than 4,5 million Ukrainian hryvnia).

This is a new tool of the SCO Ukraine to acknowledge the best performing initiatives in addressing gender inequalities and empowering women and men in the particular fields of projects interventions. The best cases of the period 2012 – 2014 were presented for consideration.

Three projects, in particular the Energy Efficiency in Vinnytsia, the Resource Efficient and Cleaner Production Centre and the IOM project Prevention of Human Trafficking through Community Mobilization (two lasts are located in Kyiv) received the Gender Award certificates and special prizes.

The Energy Efficiency Project located in Vinnytsia got a set of wooden and other modern toys for the children playing room “Smile” at Vinnytsia “Transparent offices” (providing administrative services at the Vinnytsia City Council). The Vinnytsia City Council is a partner of the project and jointly they put efforts to promote energy saving approaches among citizens of Vinnytsia. While the parents look for consultations by the specialists of the “Transparent office” the children get professional care in the playing room under supervision of the social workers.

Another two projects located in Kyiv, namely the Resource Efficient and Cleaner Production Centre (RFCPC) as well as the IOM project Prevention of Human Trafficking through Community Mobilization were invited to a city tour in Kyiv with a special focus on the role of women and men at different stages of city development from the historical, political, economic and cultural point of view. The teams of the both projects discovered a lot of interesting facts about their lovely city and had the opportunity once more to discuss about the roles and inputs of both genders in a daily life and at the crucial key points in the history.

After this first exercise, the SCO Ukraine planes to continue to award the best initiatives aimed at promotion of gender equality and special achievement in outstanding performance and role models in Gender Equality and mainstreaming within the Swiss Cooperation Programme in Ukraine.

For more information please follow the links:

1. „Transparent Office” in Vinnytsia got a Gender Award – only in Ukrainian

2. IOM helps tackle gender inequalities in Carpathians

3. Chronik-Fotos – only in Ukrainian