If funds and non-profit organizations aimed at helping children are shut down, domestic medicine, at least in terms of treating childhood oncology, will be set back 30 years. This opinion in a conversation with Russian media in the program “Chroniques du Nouveau Monde” share Ekaterina Shergova, director of the Podari Zhizn Foundation.
“The clinics cannot do without us. That is, if we are not there, then a catastrophe will occur in children’s oncohematology: we will not return to a few years ago, but to the 90s, and to their very beginning, when about 80% of the children died,” she said.
According to Shergova, the role of charitable foundations in oncohematology today is enormous, and we are not talking only about Give Life, but in general. For example, she noted, only “unrelated donors” today are paid from the charity budget – the state does not support these expenses.
“The state, especially ours now, cannot pay Germany €20,000 to find someone as a bone marrow donor. It is simply impossible,” explained the philanthropist.
She added that today the fund has a certain reputation, thanks to which “some urgent drugs located in Russia can be obtained on word and on a letter of guarantee” without prepayment.
“We can do this because we have confidence in ourselves and we are a fairly large buyer for medical suppliers. Only the state is bigger, probably,” Shergova said.
At the same time, after the outbreak of hostilities in Ukraine, the activities of the foundation were threatened, in particular due to the reduction in the number of donors and the withdrawal of foreign companies engaged in charitable actions from Russia.
“Some of our benefactors, ordinary individuals who left the country and supported the fund abroad, can no longer do so (donate money) because Russian cards have stopped working. This applies to those who have normal well-being,” she added.
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