Did you know that the largest diagnostic and treatment centre for children and adolescents in the Podlaskie Voivodeship (Poland) and the main children's hospital in Zakarpattya (Ukraine) – have also received funding from the Interreg NEXT Programme Poland – Ukraine 2021-2027 for a joint project?

The official launch of the project ‘Children are the future...’ (acronym Future4Kids) took place on 19^th  June 2024 with the signing of a partnership agreement between the University Children's Clinical Hospital of Białystok and the Regional Children's Hospital of the Zakarpattya Regional Council in Mukachevo (Ukraine).

Although the functioning of the public healthcare systems in Poland and Ukraine are very different, and the two hospitals are hundreds of kilometres apart, they are both struggling with similar problems. Over the past few years, following the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine, the need for medical services has increased significantly. Some of these needs will be able to be met through the Programme's health projects. One of them is precisely the project implemented by the Białystok and Mukachevo children's hospitals.

The main objective of the project is to ensure access to high quality medical services and to support the resilience of health systems. This will be achieved through specific investments in both hospitals and the cooperation and exchange of experiences between their staff. The University Children's Clinical Hospital in Białystok will gain state-of-the-art equipment: telemetric Holter monitors, an automated mobile system for electronic documentation of patients' vital signs, an ultrasound echocardiograph, high-end ultrasound and mobile cardiac monitors. On the other hand, the children's hospital in Mukachevo will be equipped with a CT scanner, an X-ray system and fluoroscopic system, an ultrasound scanner and a gait laboratory, which will enable more precise diagnosis of patients and facilitate the selection of prostheses after amputation and faster recovery of normal gait for people with endoprostheses. In addition, both hospitals will purchase modern IT equipment.

In addition to the infrastructural measures, the partners have also planned a number of soft measures involving the exchange of good practices between their medical staff and the creation of a basis for medical consultations between the units. The two hospitals will also jointly develop an innovative mechanism to allow patients treated in both countries to access their electronic medical records, even many years after their treatment.

The project will run for two years, with funding of more than 2.3 MEUR.