(August 19, 1994) A 25-million-dollar cancer clinic to treat thousands of Belorusian children who contracted cancer following the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear accident, will be built over the next two years on the outskirts of Minsk.
(415/6.4112) WISE Amsterdam - The hospital will have 114 children's beds and 80 beds for their mothers. The clinic, to be built as a joint venture project between the Austrian Relief Organisation-Malteser and the Austrian and Belarus governments, is scheduled for completion by Apr. 26, 1996 - the 10th anniversary of the accident at the nuclear reactor in Chernobyl, in northeastern Ukraine.
The clinic would also benefit from an ongoing, six-year project under which doctors and nurses are being trained in Austria, Germany, Switzerland and the United states in advanced methods of treating child cancer patients. So far more than 20 doctors and 10 nurses have been trained under this project.
According to a report by the Relief Organisation, the incidents of cancer among children in the country increased from 41 per 100,000 children in 1985 to 93 per 100,000 by 1990. Altogether, says the report, 500,000 children are affected by the after effects of radiation. In western countries, up to 85 percent of children with blood cancer are treated successfully, but in Belarus it hovers around 15 percent due to lack of equipment and medicine. "One of the project's aim is to bring this up to western standards," Rossipaul-Nemeth of the Austrian Relief Organisation-Malteser said.
Source: IPS, 25 June 1994
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