1,5 million dollars donated for treatment of Belarusian children
Euroradio clarified why money was collected for treatment of children, and parents refuse from the state's help.
" The story of Petya, "the butterfly boy" from Vileyka, spread throughout the country. The 4-year-old boy has a very thin skin that gets torn at every inaccurate touch. The aid for him has been collected by the whole community. The boy's mother Aksana says that the state has only provided Petya privileges for bandages and medicines for the treatment of wounds. However, these medicines cannot be used on him, so Aksana buys imported ones.
A dermatologist, who was sent from Minsk, just shrugged and advised her to
address to ... the German Embassy. It is necessary to collect 75,000
euros for Petya’s treatment. However, the special commission on the
premises of the Ministry of Health hasn’t got down to this case yet. So far,
they have only sent a letter that they know about the problem.
"A special commission on sending citizens for treatment abroad for the cost of the state budget is working on the premises of the Ministry of Health. If the commission takes a decision that it is necessary to send a kid abroad as it is impossible to treat him properly here, then the state pays for this", - Minister of Health Vasil Zharko has said to Euroradio's correspondent during the hotline in the newspaper "Respublika".
According to the Minister, the necessity to address to some other country for medical assistance is a rare occurrence. Almost everything can be treated here, with high quality.
"We are not worse at all. They have something in the field of brain surgery, probably. Our Center has not been constructed yet. And even so, all types of surgeries are performed in hospital No. 5".
The family of the 14-year-old Masha Rakhlej, who has a rare disease - bone cancer - decided to treat her in Moscow. Like, the offers of the Moscow doctors looked more attractive. It is easy to understand the girl's mother Inessa. Her daughter's leg bone is slowly decaying. In Minsk, the doctors suggested to cut out a piece of it or to substitute it with an artificial implant. In Moscow, they promised they would treat and save the leg.
"This is because they offered us the latest methods of treatment. They performed a unique surgery to her. In Belarus, no one offered anything like this to us", – Inessa Rakhlej says.
As for the commission mentioned by the Minister of Health, Inessa Rakhlej decided to sue it. The doctors were mistaken with the initial diagnosis and said that it was possible to treat Masha successfully in Belarus. This is taking into consideration the fact that no one had ever performed such surgeries in our country before. No wonder. Only 300 cases of such type of bone cancer have been registered in the whole world. The court ended in nothing - they failed to estimate the correctness of the diagnosis.
Apart from distrust to the commission at the premises of the Ministry of health, Inessa Rakhlej had other reasons to refuse from treatment in Minsk.
"All hospitals were ready to work with us. However, the question was money, once again. It happened so that Moscow offered their services and variants. We cooperated with them. They did not put us before the fact - it will be done this way and that's it. We made the choice. And this is exactly the way Minsk works - they suggest a variant and say, if you don't want it that's your problem, we are not going to offer you anything else", - Masha's mother says.
In the end, the sick girl's parents decided to use the help of the non-state fund "Chance". They managed to collect 16 thousand dollars necessary for the surgery in donations.
Representatives of the fund say that they managed to collect 1,5 million dollars thanks to the people who care, for the last three years. More than 200 children could go abroad for treatment. Ordinary people and commercial companies make donations.
Have you been involved into charity" The Minskers answer this question here: 120409 STR Dabr4ynnast.mp3
