Cook Children’s Support for Ukrainian Children’s Hospitals

Updated May 5, 2022:

How to help Ukraine: 15 verified charities working to help Ukrainians amid invasion (today.com)

The World Central Kitchen: 

• https://wck.org/

Save the Children Ukraine Crisis Relief Fund:

• https://support.savethechildren.org/site/Donation2?df_id=5751&mfc_pref=T&5751.donation=form1

Maya’s Hope, helps children with special needs from Ukraine:

• https://mayashope.org/

We’ve all seen the heartbreaking images of children in the midst of the war zone in Ukraine. Sick and injured babies and children sheltering in the basement of hospitals. Doctors and nurses doing their best with what they have to save their lives.

Then on Wednesday, a children's hospital and maternity ward in the Ukrainian port city of Mariupol was destroyed in the Russian airstrike and resulted in more than a dozen injuries, according to the New York Times.

Beginning Wednesday, March 9, the blue lights that illuminate Cook Children’s Medical Center at night will shine with accents of gold in support of Ukraine, its children’s hospitals and health care workers.

As the war wages, the health care needs of Ukrainian children will undoubtedly increase, as will the need for additional medical supplies.

At Cook Children’s, we are doing what we can to support efforts to meet those needs. Right now, we are taking our lead from the Children’s Hospital Association (CHA), of which Cook Children’s is a member. Rick W. Merrill, Cook Children’s president and CEO, chaired CHA’s board of trustees in 2018. 

“Knowing that sick and injured children are trapped in the middle of a war zone and supplies will inevitably run low is devastating,” Mr. Merrill said. “Cook Children’s will do whatever it can to support the response efforts of CHA. We are in touch with our colleagues there and will respond if and when a request is made. The ability to coordinate with health care systems all over the country and across the globe to help kids in crisis is the beauty of CHA.”

Children’s Hospital Association is in close contact with its European counterpart—the European Children’s Hospital Association (ECHA). The ECHA comprises hospitals within the European Union and Israel that are closest to the action. Their immediate focus is on critically ill children whose care needs make it very difficult to evacuate them to other hospitals within the region. Most of Ukraine’s pediatric intensive care capabilities reside in the capital city of Kyiv, meaning these hospitals, children and their medical providers are surrounded by heavy fighting.

Children’s Hospital Association and ECHA are working together to coordinate support for these hospitals and their patients, and exploring ways to safely transfer the most critically ill among them to other hospitals within the region and beyond, if need be. The logistics of this are extremely complex.

In the short term, Cook Children’s Command Center is working with the Supply Chain Department to identify supplies and organizations that could be sent for distribution to hospitals in Ukraine. They’re pulling together things like masks, sanitizing wipes, medical tubing and surgical supplies.

Children’s Hospital Association is also reaching out to representatives within the federal government to champion the plight of critically ill children in Ukraine and encourage them to keep them top-of-mind as they allocate support for the Ukrainian government.

Our hearts are hurting for the people of Ukraine, especially the children. No child should have to suffer the atrocities of war. While our Promise is to care for all children here at home, we stand with our comrades around the globe doing the same within their communities. We will remain aware of their situation and needs, and we will answer the call for help when it comes.