Report for 2017

On behalf of little patients, their parents and hospital staff, we would like to thank for all donations to the Children’s Hospital! We managed to raise the funds totalling 1 041 713 EUR in 2017.

Thanks to the support of contributors, in 2017 we were able to provide support in the amount of 1 007 505 EUR.

Purpose	Amount, EUR
Environmental improvements	291275
Patients in the hospital	209 636
Patients outside the hospital	275419
Medical treatment services	138823
Staff further development	52 232
Administrative expenses	40 120

Patients of the Children’s Hospital:

• Altogether 277 children received support, including: 
  • Support to 161 patients of the Children Hospital, who required additional examinations that were not available in Latvia, for their medical treatment abroad, or drugs that were not reimbursed by the state;
  • Provision of paid medical assistance abroad for 53 patients of the Children Hospital. The costs of the child’s medical treatment abroad include the patient’s, the accompanying person’s and attending doctor’s transport and accommodation costs, travel costs, consultations and specific examinations;
  • Provision of assistance to 116 children who needed it for the improvement of their health or quality of life after being treated at the Children’s Hospital — as part of the charity campaign Angels above Latvia, including there was an opportunity to help Emanuels, Katrīna, Miša and Marta to improve their health and ability to move independently;
  • It was possible for the little patients to get home wherever in Latvia, altogether 120 trips. Doctors were closely monitoring the child’s health condition and tried to find a possibility for the child to go home as often as possible. It is especially important for the patients who have been seriously ill for a long time and who, in such a difficult moment of their lives, are willing to be at home and with people who are supporting them emotionally, when it is possible between the stages of therapy; 
• Support to the participation of 10 former patients of the Children’s Hospital in the International Children’s Winner Games in Moscow, which is a unique sports competition for children who have challenged an oncological disease, as well as the participation of 10 current patients in the special camp in Italy Dinamo Camp — recovery program for the patients from the Oncology Department;
• Support to the visit of professors, paediatric surgeons from Finland and USA to the Children’s Hospital to perform complicated surgeries on 12 patients of the Children's Hospital, in cooperation with their Latvian peers. Professor's royalty, travel and accommodation costs were paid for by the Children's Hospital Foundation;
• Launching the initiative With Sincerity to the Disease aimed at helping children with oncological diseases who will need the state non-financed medical and diagnostic services this year;

• Further development of the support program for families with liver transplant;
• Launching the anti-violence campaign Keep the Children Safe together with a team of doctors from the Children’s Clinical University Hospital, and prompt provision of information about the situations dangerous to the health and life of the children, and calling on of the public to be more responsible for keeping the children safe.

Improvement to the environment of the Children’s Hospital:

• Setting up of a new playground and recreation area at the Gaiļezers site of the Children's Hospital for children with impaired mobility and patients with psychiatric diseases;

• Provision of 38 new and comfortable specialized chairs for the patients' parents of the Children's Hospital Infants' Intensive Therapy Department, the Emergency Medical Aid and Observation Department and the Intensive Care Department. They will not only ease the daily routine of the children’s parents, but will also help the little ones recover faster and grow bigger;

• Provision of 55 functional beds and bedside tables for patients, that allow children feeling better, especially at the treatment periods when they have to stay in bed and any movement is hard to make;
• Improvement of psychologists' rooms and mother's feeding rooms;
• Already for the 5th time, design and publishing of an activities book Get Well with Pleasure for the little patients. We hope that a child, while staying at the hospital and dealing with the problems and activities in the book, will develop interest in chess, photography or any other entertaining activity;
• Further update of various information materials about oncological and haematological diseases, so that children and their parents could receive information in a perceptible and understandable form about the anticipated treatment process, different manipulations and other important questions they have after learning that they have been diagnosed with cancer;
• Already for the third year, organising of a garden party on the occasion of the International Day for Protection of Children, for the little patients, their parents and the hospital staff to create a festival together with 14 Latvian chefs and to demonstrate an example that healthy food can be very delicious and easy to cook;

• Implementation of the developed support program of Oncology Department;
• Provision of new blankets, pillows, mattresses and bed linen to the Parents’ House and parents of the little patients who will have an opportunity next year to take a quality rest and regain their strength;
• Support to the establishment of the fire detection and notification system control centre at the Torņakalns site;
• Provision of materials for interest education work with patients of the Children's Hospital, supplies of books and games, and organisation of anniversary celebrations, such as Christmas and Easter, for the patients. Care for children's health can vary, including the creation of joy and positive emotions, especially at times when everybody is having a celebration, but little patients have their treatment at the hospital;

• The 10th anniversary celebration of the Sunny Days Library at the Children's Hospital, as in cooperation with the Riga Central Library and the newspaper ‘Diena’ the idea of the library was implemented in 2007 for little patients of the Children's Hospital in order to make their everyday life easier, more enjoyable and interesting;

• Wonderful gifts for the Children's Hospital's nurses — for them it was a surprise that lasted for a long time, because different adventures were planned for them!
• Making a surprise to the little patients, organizing a meeting with Kristaps Porziņģis and other 15 players of the Latvian National Men's Basketball League. We were very pleased that the Latvian Basketball Association and the national team couch and players responded to our call to come and encourage children, making the recovery happier.

Development of medical treatment services and quality improvement:

• Creation and improvement of autistic room for parents whose children were diagnosed with or suspected of autistic spectrum disorders, and creation of the internet platform www.autismsberniem.lv;

• Provision of a heating bed for new-borns, in which the temperature is adjustable and adaptable; provision of cooling device for new-borns for ensuring a special therapy, a probe for an existing ultrasonography device for young children under the age of 7, as well as restoration of rehabilitation equipment;
• Launching a project for creation of the Milk Bank aimed at ensuring the milk provided by donors to the smallest patients throughout Latvia;

• Start of development of the care program for children with movement and functioning disorders caused by neurological damage;
• Financial support to the Inhalable Nitric Oxide (iNO) therapy required for patients with dangerously high blood pressure in lung artery (or small cycle of blood circulation) (for the time being, the state does not finance such therapy);
• Development of a modern prevention program for teenagers, and creation of health care service for children dependent on psychoactive substances. The program will start in April 2018;

• Support to the establishment of unified data register for monitoring of intensive therapy in Latvia for improvement of the quality of severely ill children care;
• Support to the publishing the Intensive Care Department Guidebook with the primary goal of facilitating rapid decision-making for critically ill children both at the Children’s Hospital and outside it. It will help any doctor who provides emergency care for children. The Guidebook was created by the Children’s Hospital tam of reanimatologists and anaesthesiologists to ensure an equal level of provision of first aid to children throughout Latvia. The book will be available free of charge to the specialists involved in the emergency assistance process;

• Development of a resident support program and start of implementation thereof at the Children’s Hospital clinics where the greatest shortage of specialists is foreseen in the nearest future.

Children’s Hospital staff development:

• Support to the professional development of doctors, nurses, as well as Hospital staff by covering the participation, travel and accommodation costs when attending international congresses, conferences, educational publications and trainings, and also the royalties for foreign specialists in experience sharing programs. For example, in 2017, the financial support was provided to the visits of recognised nursing experts to the Children’s Hospital — Professor Dr. Lyvonne Tume from West England University, and Dr. Joseph Manning from Nottingham University — to share their experience with our nurses in cardiologic patient care;
• Support to the acquisition of theoretical and practical skills of laparoscopic children’s surgery in a veterinary clinic where the patients — from new-borns to the age of high school period — are imitated;
• Support to HOPE program also in 2017, hosting specialists in the Children’s Hospital;
• Development and implementation of training program on volunteering in the Children’s Hospital and mentoring for young pregnant women. 

Most sincere thanks to all donors and absolutely everybody who organised activities on their own with the goal to support the Children's Hospital and its patients – they were schoolchildren, parents of the former patients, peers and colleagues from work – your care and help is very important for us, and we appreciate it from all our hearts!