The Center of Cardiology and Cardiac Surgery of the Ministry of Health of Ukraine rescues children from front-line cities and operates on 100-year-old patients

— In our department, Hleb Yemets performs heart operations without opening the chest through a small access on the thigh or arm (transcatheter replacement of the aortic valve), or through a 4-centimeter incision near the nipple of the mammary gland with the help of special 3D endoscopic glasses (as in the cinema ). He is one of the few specialists who performs such operations and this is a feature of our department.

— Did your branch open during a full-scale Russian invasion? Nothing interfered with the pre-war plans?

—Indeed, our branch was opened in March 2022. Volodymyr Zelenskyi opened it personally. He came to our center on the occasion of the Day of the medical worker and nurse, and he, in fact, opened our department after inspecting the newly constructed building.

In general, our Center for Children’s Cardiology and Cardiac Surgery was founded by Ilya Mykolayovych Yemts over 30 years ago. The center has been functioning as a separate institution for 21 years, but it all started with the department on the basis of the National Institute of Cardiovascular Surgery named after Amosov, where a student of the outstanding Amosov – Ilya Yemets, after working in Australia, France and Canada, performed the first operation on the heart of a newborn in the post-Soviet space and thereby started neonatal cardiac surgery, which later grew into the opening of a separate Center, and then we started operating on adults.

Currently, our center operates both children with heart defects from the moment of their birth (at least 2 hours after birth) and adults. For example, currently our oldest patient who underwent heart surgery, — 101 years old. When he was 99 years old, everyone refused him, they said that he had already lived his life. But we operated on him. He lives on, is doing well and recently celebrated his 101st birthday. And every day he climbs Volodymyrska Hill with his wife to enjoy the wonderful views of his native Kyiv.

— Now you also have to work in difficult conditions after the Russian attack on Kyiv on July 8 this year?

— We have two buildings. One on the territory of the Okhmatdyt campus (children’s building), the second (adult building) – on Illenka, 24. Now the building of the children’s building is temporarily not functioning, because a rocket flew into the neighboring building of the Nephrology Department of Okhmatdyt and our building also suffered significant damage. Completely destroyed operating rooms, resuscitation. At the time of “arrival”, there were 4 patients on the operating tables. None of them were injured. In one of the operating rooms, the surgeon literally covered a small patient with his body so that fragments and glass did not get into the wound.

Now we are repairing everything in the building. In the meantime, we accept both children and adults at Ilyenka. We operate, consult and do everything possible for patients.

— How many patients has the Center for Children’s Cardiology and Cardiac Surgery helped since its opening in 2022?

— We consult patients, treat them therapeutically, provide them with diagnostic services and perform cardiac surgery. If we talk about operations, a total of about 6,000 operations have been performed since 2022. If we talk about consultations, it is more than 40 thousand patients.

From the first days of the full-scale invasion, our specialists have been going to the de-occupied territories (initially it was the Kyiv region) and on a permanent basis we visit the Donetsk, Kharkiv, Zaporizhia regions, etc. There we provide consultations, conduct examinations of people of all ages. Those who need help in terms of cardiac surgery, we take with us and operate in the capital.

— What are the conditions of treatment at the Center?

— Thanks to our director Ilya Yemts and the support of the executive authorities, everything for patients under 18 is completely free of charge: examinations, examinations, operations. Everything is also free for the military. For adult patients, due to the high cost and cost of cardiac surgery, unfortunately, there is still no full coverage of the costs by the state budget, so they partially pay for the treatment on their own.

— How did your work change during the war?

– During the full-scale invasion, we did not stop work for a single day. Moreover, when the full-scale invasion began, 90% of the team came to work.

On February 24, 2022, we performed five scheduled cardiac surgeries: 10 coronary angiograms. We did not cancel anything. Then, of course, some of the workers were forced to leave to find a safe place for themselves. But nearly 130 employees of the Center remained here for permanent residence and we lived in the hospital for 54 days operating and consulting our cardiac patients, as well as military and civilian patients who came in with injuries. They went to help colleagues in other hospitals. That is, we did not leave the hospital for 54 days, when it was the most difficult in Kyiv, and only then did we go to full-time work.

Moreover, during such a difficult period, when the Ukrainian Armed Forces were liberating the outskirts of Kyiv, we opened two new departments: minimally invasive cardiac surgery and transcatheter procedures and the department of cardiometabolic medicine (patients with accompanying diabetes and heart diseases receive complex treatment here).

— Is it possible to develop in conditions of war?

— The war, of course, has its negative impact, but at the same time we really manage to develop. The other day, our director of the Center, Ilya Mykolayovych, returned from the USA, where he was awarded the honorary title of a member of the American Society of Cardiac Surgeons for Congenital Heart Diseases (US Congenital Heart Surgeons’ Society).

The uniqueness is that only about 100 cardiac surgeons in the world were awarded this title, and it is interesting that almost all of them are Americans and only six theros, including Yemets, are representatives of the European continent. This is world-class recognition!

— As far as we know, our cardiac surgeons also actively transfer their experience to foreign colleagues.

— Ukrainian cardiac surgery is one of the many fields of which one can be proud and which is known all over the world at a high level. Our head, Hleb Yemets, is currently the only specialist in 3D endoscopic cardiac surgery in Ukraine. He wears glasses like in a cinema with 3D mode and through a small incision measuring 4 centimeters through the mammary gland, he operates on hearts. He also teaches specialists abroad how to perform transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVI procedure). He is the proctor of three international companies – this is unique even for global cardiac surgeons. He is constantly invited to Kazakhstan, where he actually teaches and operates. Now he is teaching colleagues in Greece, and his favorite patients are waiting for him in Kyiv.

— Is it possible to continue the training of Ukrainian colleagues?

– Of course. We conduct special courses on 3D endoscopic surgery for cardiologists, general practitioners and surgeons. We travel to the regions to perform TAVI: we train colleagues in the Vinnytsia, Ternopil, Rivne, and Volyn regions. On October 31, we have an annual conference called “Forum on Congenital Heart Defects”. This year we dedicated it to heart defects in adult patients. Speakers from the USA, Japan and Germany will take part in the conference. Of course, they will join us online. But we are waiting for peace to come to Ukraine, and they will be able to attend our events directly.

— Does the center continue to provide assistance to foreigners, as it was before the full-scale invasion?

– Yes. Foreign patients come to us even despite the war. Before the full-scale invasion, we treated about 400 children from abroad a year. Most of them came from Kazakhstan, Moldova, Romania, Poland, even from the United States. With the beginning of the full-scale war, 48 children were treated here, mostly all from Moldova and Kazakhstan. Adults also come. During this period, 18 adult patients who needed cardiosurgical intervention on the heart came to us, and despite the war, they came.

There is a demand among foreign citizens, because the level in our hospital is European, and the cost of services for foreign citizens is much lower than if they went to, for example, Germany. And the level of complexity of operative interventions that we perform is actually very high. We are very much waiting for the war to end, and patients are waiting to discover Ukrainian cardiac surgery.

— What are the plans of the Center for Children’s Cardiology and Cardiac Surgery today?

— The biggest plan for the future is, of course, to expand the range of services for our patients. To go to the place where, unfortunately, people are currently experiencing the greatest disaster of war. We really hope that we will be able to come to liberated Mariupol to help people there. And we will be able to travel all over Ukraine and train doctors in Donetsk region, in Zaporizhzhia, and in Kharkiv region. These are the main plans – to transfer our experience to help as many people as possible.

Of course, we work on an international scale: we already consult in Moldova and plan to consult in Poland.

But the biggest wish is, of course, for the war to end and for children and adults to return to Ukraine and for us to help them here, to support them a little with our work.