to help these desperate children and their families.

Here's a post from DU'er Mika, from 2008:

Mika Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Apr-27-08 07:39 AM
Response to Original message
http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/30132/story.htm

2. Ukraine Thanks Cuba For Chernobyl Children Care

Cuba has treated 18,153 children victims of the radiation fallout from the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear power plant disaster, Ukraine's Health Minister Nykola Polischuk said on Tuesday.

For 15 years, children from Chernobyl have traveled to Cuba to be treated free of cost by Cuban doctors at the beach resort of Tarara, on the eastern outskirts of Havana.
The pale, sometimes bald, strikingly beautiful children can often be seen playing joyfully on the beach and splashing in the warm Caribbean sea.

They have been treated for cancers, kidney and thyroid ailments, digestive and nervous disorders, and the loss of hair and skin pigmentation.

"At a difficult moment for the people of Ukraine, Cuba was one of the first to extend a helping hand with health care for the children," Polischuk said at a ceremony marking the 15th anniversary of the Cuban program.

Ukrainian parents and children thanked Cuban President Fidel Castro, danced on a theater stage and recited poems by Cuban independence hero Jose Marti.

Communist Cuba began the program in 1990 and kept it going through its own economic meltdown following the collapse of its international sponsor, the Soviet Union.

Figures have never been released for the cost of the program, which Havana says is part of it international solidarity efforts that have sent tens of thousands of Cuban doctors to work in poor Third World countries.

Polischuk praised the quality of Cuba's medical system and its warm climate, which some specialists say has played a psychological role in the recovery of the children.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x3285738

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Two articles shared by:

plasticsundance Donating Member (786 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Nov-17-05 08:15 AM
Response to Original message

5. Cuba's known for its help with victims of Chernobyl

It's called: Children of Chernobyl

They made the offer in the wake of the massive 1986 Chernobyl nuclear power plant blast and fire, which released 300 times the radiation emitted by Washington's atomic attack on Hiroshima in 1945.

Some 125,000 people have died from illness as a result of the catastrophe, Ukrainian health minister Andrei Serdyuk estimated in April 1995. At least 3 million suffer from some form of contamination-induced disease from the deadly plume of radioactive fallout spewed by the smoldering reactor.

Despite an original goal of meeting the health needs of "10,000 Chernobyl victims at a time," Navarro wrote, the collapse of favorable trade with the Soviet Union, economic belt-tightening in Cuba, and a shortage of funds in Ukraine to provide travel to Cuba have meant that "the program never had enough money to serve more than 2,000 children at one time."

Still, she reported, it has a medical staff of 350 currently hosting 236 young patients, bringing the overall number of children treated to 13,500. More than 2,000 adults have received attention as well.

Post #5:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x1930728

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Vol. 78/No. 26 July 21, 2014

‘Only Cuba acted with such human solidarity’
(lead article)

BY JOHN STUDER
KIEV, Ukraine — “Cuba played a really big role in helping those stricken by the nuclear disaster in Chernobyl, especially for such a small country,” said Liliya Piltyay, who helped organize to get children and others in need of medical attention to the island where they could receive top-quality treatment free of charge. As part of a special medical program, Cuba to date has treated more than 25,000 victims of the nuclear meltdown in Chernobyl, Ukraine, from Ukraine, Belarus and Russia.
“This is the first time we have met with a delegation from the United States interested in what we did,” she told Militant correspondents with the help of translator Oksana Demyanovych.

Present at the meeting along with Piltyay were eight young women who had gone to Cuba for medical treatment and two of their mothers, as well as Tatiana Burka, a woman associated with the program who worked for years as a “liquidator,” helping to evacuate people from the Chernobyl area.

Piltyay was assigned by the Ukraine Komsomol — the Communist Party youth organization — to organize participation in the Cuban program when it began in 1990. Today, Piltyay works in a cardiac program for the Ukraine Ministry of Health.

“When the explosion at Chernobyl took place on April 26, 1986, it was a social tragedy,” she said. “The authorities didn’t tell anyone the extent of what was taking place. To this day, I don’t know why they did not cancel the big May Day demonstrations in Kiev and other cities in zones where radiation was high.”

“Until the early 1990s spreading information about the true extent of the radiation and the number of those affected was prohibited,” Piltyay said. “But some of our young scientists got the facts together and at the end of 1989 this material was published, focusing attention on the extent of the radiation danger to the population.”

More:
http://www.themilitant.com/2014/7826/782602.html

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Ukrainian children Yulia Adienko (8) late victim of the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear
plant accident, under medical treatment at Tarara Hospital, east from Havana, ...

http://www.caribbeannewsnow.com/caribnet/cgi-script/csArticles/articles/000013/001395.htm



Rene Burri

CUBA. Tarara beach.

Ukrainian children victims of Chernobyl, undergoing treatment and rest.

Click to see:

http://s1.reutersmedia.net/resources/r/?m=02&d=20100324&t=2&i=80796265&w=976&fh=&fw=&ll=&pl=&r=2010-03-24T003510Z_01_GM1E63O0LI201_RTRRPP_0_CUBA

Tuesday, March 23, 2010

Ukrainian boy Pablo, 8, and his sister Olga, 2, victims of the 1986 nuclear power plant disaster in Chernobyl, are pictured at their temporary home at the Pediatric Hospital in Tarara, outside Havana March 23, 2010. For the past 20 years, Cuba has been providing free health treatment to around 24,000 child victims of the Chernobyl disaster in Ukraine. REUTERS/Desmond Boylan

One of 11 photos at:
http://www.reuters.com/news/picture/chernobyl-victims-treated-in-cuba?articleId=USRTR2BZRV[/center]
Thank you for this important post. People really should know about this work they've been doing there, por nada.

Many Many Thanks