SickKids and CCCF Establish Ukraine Child Health Fellowship Program

TORONTO – November 30, 2012 – SickKids Foundation is pleased to announce the creation of the Ukraine Child Health Fellowship Program made possible through a $1 million gift bequest from the late Frederick Tkachuk to the Children of Chornobyl Canadian Fund (CCCF). The Fellowship Program will improve the quality of paediatric health care in Ukraine through an exchange of people, information and talent with The Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids).

The Ukraine Child Health Fellowship Program will provide physicians from Ukraine with opportunities to acquire high-demand skills through intensive training in paediatric specializations at SickKids in Toronto and in their home medical centres in Ukraine. An exchange of expertise and experience between Ukrainian and Canadian health-care professionals will ensure children with specific and often complex health issues are better able to access the care they need.

This is the first partnership of its kind for the CCCF which was established in 1990 to provide humanitarian aid and support for victims of the Chornobyl nuclear disaster. The CCCF supports a variety of projects to improve health care and the general well-being of children in Ukraine. However, this is the first time the CCCF is investing in a program with SickKids that will see Ukrainian doctors come to Canada for specialized training that will in turn increase paediatric health care capacity in Ukraine when they return home.

The $1 million gift was made possible by the estate of Mr. Frederick Tkachuk of Melfort, Saskatchewan. Mr. Tkachuk, a successful farmer of Ukrainian descent who was born in Star City, Sask., lived quiety in Melfort. Early in his life, he developed an interest in his parental homeland, in Western Ukraine. The Chornobyl Nuclear Disaster in April 1986 had a profound effect on Mr. Tkachuk. Even though the nuclear power plant’s reactor explosion occurred a considerable distance to the east of his parents’ homeland, he became keenly interested in the welfare of the thousands of people affected by the nuclear fallout.  Mr. Tkachuk worried particularly about the children and decided to help them by bequesting a significant gift through his estate to the Children of Chornobyl Canadian Fund. The CCCF then worked with SickKids to develop the Ukraine Child Health Fellowship and provided the funding to support this fellowship program.

“The CCCF is proud and honoured to be the recipients of monies granted from the will from Fred Tkachuk. We are very thankful for his generous gift, to be used for what we feel the most appropriate way to honour his memory as a Ukrainian Canadian who wanted to help children in Ukraine.  The Ukraine Child Health Endowment Fund is a unique and interesting way for the money to stay here in Canada and still benefit the medical establishment and care of children in Ukraine,” says Renata Roman, co-president of the CCCF.

SickKids will work with partners in Ukraine to deliver the two components of the program: fellowships and advisory missions. Through the fellowships, each year Ukrainian physicians will come to SickKids for specialized paediatric medical care training for a period of time. Their training experience will be supported through program funding. Once they return to Ukraine they will play a role in training additional specialists there, so the impact of their training at SickKids is amplified many times over, helping to improve child health in Ukraine for generations to come. Through the advisory missions, paediatric specialists from SickKids will visit sites in Ukraine annually to provide expertise and share best practices in order to develop and enhance child health programs with our Ukrainian partners.

“The Children of Chornobyl Canadian Fund established the Ukraine Child Health Fellowship with SickKids because of the hospital’s stellar international reputation in child health research and care,” says Dr. Myroslava Romach, Director on the Board of the CCCF and head of its Medical Advisory Committee. SickKids is a world renowned institution and one of the leaders in paediatric care and education. “Together with SickKids, we can help ensure that physicians in Ukraine are able to provide the highest standard of care for Ukrainian children,” adds Dr. Romach.

The first phase of this program will focus on neurosurgery. Dr. James Rutka, who joined SickKids as a neurosurgeon in 1990, has been appointed the role of project leader in implementing the fellowship program. He was appointed co-director of the Arthur and Sonia Labatt Brain Tumor Research Centre at the University of Toronto in 1998. He is currently Chairman of the Department of Surgery at the University of Toronto and holds the R.S. McLaughlin Chair in Surgery. Dr. Rutka is of Ukrainian heritage whose family came from Western Ukraine and settled in Saskatchewan.

“Dr. Rutka and his team are planning a trip to Ukraine to assess potential candidates and their skills set for the fellowship program, particularly, those practising neurosurgeons who have a level of medical expertise in paediatric neurosurgery… We are grateful not only to the Medical Advisory Committee at the CCCF for their foresight and dedication to Fellowship program, but also to the SickKids Foundation for their committment to medical knowledge transfer, and interest investing in Ukraine’s medical expertise and future generations,” concludes Ms. Roman.

“At SickKids, everything we do stems from our vision of Healthier Children, A Better World, and it is programs like these that help us achieve our mission of improving the lives of children and their families around the world,” says Ted Garrard, President and CEO, SickKids Foundation. “We are grateful to the Children of Chornobyl Canadian Fund for their leadership in philanthropy, enabling the establishment of this fellowship program, and for helping SickKids help children in Ukraine.”

About SickKids Foundation

Established in 1972, SickKids Foundation raises funds on behalf of The Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids) and is the largest charitable funder of child health research, learning and care in Canada. Philanthropy is a critical source of funding for SickKids -- one of the world’s foremost paediatric health-care institutions. For the fiscal year ending March 31, 2012, SickKids Foundation made an investment of $61.3 million in children’s health, a direct result of community and corporate support.

For more information, please visit www.sickkidsfoundation.com.

PHOTOS

1 - L. to R.: Dr. James Rutka, neurosurgeon at the Hospital for Sick Children and leader of the Fellowship Program; Ted Garrard, President & CEO, SickKIds Foundation; Dr. Myroslava Romach, CCCF Board and member of the project team, Renata Roman and Dr. Michael Kondracki, Co-presidents, CCCF

2 – The late Frederick Tkachuk