Перейти к основному содержанию

Further support for Ukraine: Austria evacuates children with cancer from the Ukrainian city of Lviv

Страны
Австрия
+ 1
Источники
Govt. Austria
Дата публикации
Происхождение
Просмотреть оригинал

Ambulance transport with five children suffering from cancer reaches Vienna

Russian attacks on hospitals and medical facilities are being reported increasingly. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), more than 70 of these illegal and morally reprehensible attacks have already been carried out. As a result, medical care capacities in Ukraine are reaching their limits. This affects children with cancer who are undergoing treatment there and need medical care around the clock particularly hard and leads to a situation of desperation and powerlessness. Commenting on the latest evacuation, Austrian Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg said:

It goes almost without saying that we will help these young patients from Ukraine, and it is our moral duty to do so. When on Monday night the NGO St. Jude Children's Research Hospital asked the Austrian Embassy Warsaw for urgent support in taking over children suffering from cancer, we did not hesitate for a second and immediately promised our help.

The evacuation was completed just two days later, thanks to a joint effort by the Austrian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Austrian embassy in Warsaw, the Austrian Ministry of Health, the Vienna division of the Austrian Red Cross and the St Anna Children's Hospital in Vienna. All the organisations involved worked closely with refugee coordinator Michael Takács. After a stopover in Krakow, the five young cancer patients arrived at the St Anna Children's Hospital in the early hours of Thursday morning (31 March), accompanied by their mothers. They were provided with initial medical care in Vienna before being transferred to hospitals across Austria.

The evacuation of the five children came after another five displaced Ukrainian cancer patients and 79 children from a Ukrainian orphanage arrived in Austria from Poland last week. The Austrian Ministry of Foreign Affairs with its representations in Ukraine and neighbouring countries stands ready to help evacuate more particularly vulnerable persons in the future.