Birmingham Children’s Hospital to provide cancer care for Ukrainian refugees
Birmingham Children's Hospital will provide expert cancer care to Ukrainian children who were flown to the UK on Sunday night.
Experts in paediatric cancer care from the hospital played a pivotal role in the evacuation of the 21 children and will now provide expert cancer care for some of those children.
Dr Martin English, consultant paediatric oncologist at the NHS Foundation Trust which runs the hospital, flew out to Poland to assist in the evacuation and accompanied the children on the flight to the UK on Sunday night.
Dr English said: “I’m pleased to say the children are all safe and doing as well as expected, especially after all the trauma they have endured.
“On arrival the team were able to assess the children and take care of any immediate medical needs and then allow them to eat, rest and sleep before arranging for them to go to the most appropriate centre and I’m very proud that our facility in Birmingham will be able to provide expert cancer care for some of those children.”
Amongst the team from Birmingham Children’s Hospital who triaged the children on arrival was Dr Fiona Reynolds, the Trust’s Chief Medical Officer. Fiona said: “We are incredibly proud that we have been able to help in some way to support the people of Ukraine.”
“We have some of the best clinicians in the world, therefore being able to offer even a small number of children the cancer care they so desperately need at a time when they are not only suffering ill health but with the devastation happening in their country, is the very least we can do.”
