Surgical team to travel to Ukraine

An Irish-funded surgical team has decided to run the gauntlet of violence in Ukraine to perform live- saving open-heart surgery on children.

Despite the volatile situation in the secessionist pro-Russian border region, the Chernobyl Children International aid agency’s team of surgeons will land in eastern Ukraine next week to perform operations on 60 children suffering from genetic heart defects.

The team of specialists — from the US, Canada, and Nicaragua — has twice postponed the mission because of the level of violence in the region.

But following intense negotiations, the charity confirmed it now plans to land its medical team in the eastern city of Kharkiv on Monday.

Charity boss Adi Roche said they just couldn’t turn their backs on the children.

“We discussed the possibility of moving them to either the Ukrainian capital Kiev or to Minsk in Belarus to have their surgery, but logistically this proved to have many difficulties,” she said.

“The children all live in the Kharkiv region. Their parents need to be with them during the period before and after their operations; the best facilities for the kind of minimally invasive surgery they require are in the Cardiac Hospital in Kharkiv and it also has a strong medical team.”

The charity’s medical team will be led by renowned US surgeon, Dr William Novick, founder and medical director of the International Children’s Heart Foundation, and will include specialist cardiac nurse, Frank Molloy, who has English roots but is now working in the US, and Dr Kathleen Fenton, originally of Washington DC, now living in Nicaragua.

Dr Novick — a board member of the Chernobyl charity — has pioneered the “mercy missions” to Ukraine where 6,000 babies are born each year with heart defects.