Lozhkin Foundation has held the fourth charity auction for the Illia Yemets Center
The aim of the project is to save the lives of Ukrainian children by raising funds to support Ukrainian children's medical facilities. The idea is to collect works of modern Ukrainian artists and sell them at a charity auction, said businessman Boris Lozhkin.
A regular “Art for Life” charity auction, organized by the Borys Lozhkin Foundation, took place at the “Mystetskyi Arsenal” on the 19th of June. Borys Lozhkin informed about this on his Facebook page.
“We held the auction for the fourth time yesterday. More than 70 works of art were sold. We are planning again to use the money from sale of the lots to help the specialists of the Pediatric Cardiology and Cardiac Surgery Center, for them to be able to make miracles. Modern equipment for the most complicated cardiac surgeries will be bought by us and given over to the headed by Illia Yemets Center,” he wrote.
The first “Art for life” charity auction, organized by the Lozhkin Foundation, was held in May 2015. It featured works of more than 60 leading contemporary Ukrainian artists. The goal of the project is to save lives of the Ukrainian children by raising funds to support the Ukrainian children's health care facilities.
“The project started as a bold experiment. The idea to collect works of modern Ukrainian artists and to sell them at a charity auction was quite fresh then. Everything turned out to be a success then, in 2015. And over the past years the idea of uniting the Ukrainian patrons and artists at one place for the sake of helping the pediatric medical institutions and for the sake of saving lives of children has become not only a successful project, but a real great cause and a good tradition,” stressed Lozhkin.
For the proceeds from the auction, the Foundation acquired a universal ultrasound system Philips EPIQ-7, which allows diagnosing heart diseases in children even before birth, in the womb. Such equipment appeared in Ukraine for the first time. During almost three years of its use, more than 7,600 children and 2,900 pregnant women have been examined. The Foundation also purchased a resuscitation unit for newborns, which creates optimum conditions for recovery of babies in the postoperative period. Over the same period it was used for treatment of more than 250 infants, including those operated during the first hours of life.
In March 2016, the second “Art for Life” auction was held at the “Mystetskyi Arsenal”. The collected funds from the sale of 70 works of art were used by the Borys Lozhkin Foundation to purchase and to give over to the Illia Yemets Pediatric Cardiology Center two Flow-I systems produced by the MAQUET Critical Care (Sweden). This system operates on basis of a resuscitation machine for artificial ventilation of the lungs and allows to provide anesthesia even for newborns or premature babies. During nearly two years of their use, more than 1,500 surgeries have been made, including on the hearts of infants with less than 2 kg birth weight.
The third “Art for Life” auction was held in June 2017. This time, the proceeds from the charity auction were used by the Borys Lozhkin Foundation to establish a progressive care and rehabilitation department for premature babies at the Institute of Pediatrics, Obstetrics and Gynecology of the National Academy of Medical Sciences of Ukraine. The main task of this department is the highly qualified medical aid and rehabilitation of the newborns at risk: born prematurely or with a perinatal pathology. A major reconstruction of the premises was carried out at the expense of the benefactors, and equipment for intensive care of infants with a perinatal pathology was bought - equipment for artificial ventilation of the lungs, patient monitors, apparatuses for registration of pre-clonic convulsions, phototherapy lamps, pulse-oxygen machines, incubators. The department started functioning at the end of December 2017. Doctors are able to provide assistance to more than 300 children each year at the department for 15 beds.