14.09.2022

Another Oblast Perinatal Centre received modern resuscitation equipment as part of the Controlled Hypothermia project. Today, the hardware complex for saving newborns born with severe asphyxia has been donated to the Oblast Perinatal Centre in the city of Uralsk. This is the fifth set of equipment, which, on behalf of the Samruk-Kazyna JSC group of companies, with the sponsorship of the Samruk-Kazyna Trust Foundation, is donated to the regions.

To date, from the point of view of evidence-based medicine, automatic therapeutic hypothermia is considered the only physical (non-drug) method recognized in the world for protecting the brain of newborns from irreversible damage caused by severe forms of hypoxia during childbirth.

This is also confirmed by data from the capital’s National Research Centre for Motherhood and Childhood. From November 2017 to June 2019, 72 its newborns were treated in the intensive care unit using hypothermia equipment from AYALA Foundation. In the vast majority of cases, children with complete clinical recovery in satisfactory condition were discharged home. Subsequent observation by doctors did not reveal any serious neurological disorders in them.

Therapeutic hypothermia shall be used in the first hours of a newborn’s life. Before the advent of the units, hypothermia was applied by improvised means — infants were covered with ice packs or cold water. Doctors and nurses in the intensive care unit manually maintained the low body temperature necessary to save the newborn’s central nervous system for dozens of hours. The hypothermia unit relieves this enormous load from them. It automatically maintains a precise temperature, allowing to control metabolism and cell repair in affected areas of the baby’s brain. The amplitude electroencephalography monitor helps doctors monitor and efficiently adjust the therapy used.

“For all expectant mothers and fathers of the West Kazakhstan oblast, the appearance of such modern medical equipment is certainly great news. The issue of reducing child mortality and disability is very topical for our oblast. I am sure that this equipment will be an excellent help to our doctors in saving, treating and improving the health of newborns. We thank the Samruk-Kazyna Trust and AYALA Foundation for the hypothermia unit and the amplitude electroencephalography monitor,” noted Zhanna Dilmanova, director of the Oblast Perinatal Centre of the West Kazakhstan oblast.

More than 6,000 births are performed annually at the Oblast Perinatal Centre of Uralsk. Doctors of the Neonatal Intensive Care and Resuscitation Unit of this Centre care for about 300 children a year. In 2022, from January to August, 176 newborns were treated in this department

“Support of the oblast projects in the healthcare sector is one of the main priorities for Samruk-Kazyna JSC. Providing assistance on a national scale became possible thanks to the unification of the charitable activities of the group of companies by the Samruk-Kazyna Trust Foundation. Thanks to the Foundation’s partners for such noble projects. I am glad that our company is involved in renovation the medical equipment of hospitals in our oblast,” said Arman Bashenov, head of the Uralsk railway station, a branch of KTZ-Freight Transportation JSC.

The joint project of the Samruk-Kazyna Trust and AYALA Foundation Controlled Hypothermia started in 2020. Over two years, it will provide six Oblast Perinatal Centres with medical intensive care equipment. Earlier, with the support of the Samruk-Kazyna Trust Foundation, equipment for automatic hypothermia was installed in the Perinatal block of the Oblast Multidisciplinary Hospital of the Karaganda oblast, in the Oblast Perinatal Centres in the cities of Taldykorgan and Aktau, and in the Mother and Child Centre in the city of Ust-Kamenogorsk. By the end of September 2022, AYALA Charity Foundation will donate another hypothermia hardware complex to the Shymkent City Perinatal Centre.

“In 2017, our Foundation signed a Memorandum with the Ministry of Healthcare of the Republic of Kazakhstan to support the Controlled Hypothermia project. During this time, the lives and health of 224 newborns were saved using equipment installed by AYALA Foundation in 12 cities of Kazakhstan We are very grateful and appeciate the Samruk-Kazyna Trust Foundation for their assistance in equipping five children’s intensive care units with equipment that helps reduce child mortality and disability in Kazakhstan,” stressed Aidan Suleimenova, President of AYALA Charity Foundation.