22.06.2022

A hardware complex for automatic hypothermia has appeared in the Perinatal Centre of Zhambyl Oblast Multidisciplinary Hospital. It will help neonatologists of the oblast save even more lives of newborn children. Automatic hypothermia helps to gradually cool and then warm the child’s body, normalizing metabolic processes in its body. It is used at the birth of a child with moderate and severe asphyxia (breathing disorders and lack of oxygen in the body). Gradual cooling of a newborn, applied in the first hour after birth, changes its metabolism and preserves vital brain functions. The equipment was purchased by AYALA Charity Foundation with the sponsorship of Halyk Bank as part of the Let’s Breathe Life project.

“Of the 30 years of Kazakhstan’s Independence, our Foundation has been helping domestic doctors save the lives and health of newborn children for 15 years. We do it in several areas. We help improve the skills of doctors through free courses on modern methods of caring for children. We find sponsors to provide intensive care units with modern equipment. We maintain a constant dialogue with the RoK Ministry of Healthcare, receive feedback from doctors of the highest qualifications in order to help our state and ensure the maximum effect from our charitable assistance. “I would like to express my deep gratitude to the management of Halyk Bank for their long-term support of the Let’s Breathe Life project, which every day helps save the lives of hundreds of children in intensive care units throughout Kazakhstan,” – stressed Aidan Suleimenova, president of AYALA Charity Foundation.

The Perinatal Centre of the Oblast Multidisciplinary Hospital is the only third-level institution in this region. Only there can pregnant women, women in labor and newborns from high-risk groups receive qualified medical care. Therefore, expectant mothers and newborn children in critical condition are brought to this Perinatal Centre from all over the obast. In total, it delivers about 5.5 thousand births annually.

In 2015, the Oblast Hospital received a new spacious building with a fully equipped intensive care unit for the Perinatal Centre. Gradually, neonatal mortality rates in the oblast began to decline and at the end of 2021 it amounted to 7.3 cases per 1000 newborns. However, there was a pressing issue of the lack of a unit for controlled automatic hypothermia.

“We addressed AYALA Charity Foundation with our problem and are very grateful to Halyk Bank for the timely and much-needed help for our hospital. We did not have the budgetary resources to purchase a hypothermia hardware complex. Every year, doctors nursed about 30 newborns with birth asphyxia in the intensive care unit of the Perinatal Centre. Futhermore, mechanical hypothermia was used, manually, for tens of hours, each baby was cooled with bags of cold water. We also lacked an amplitude electroencephalography unit to constantly monitor the child’s brain performance and promptly adjust therapy. All this significantly complicated the possibilities of our resuscitation efforts. Now, owing to the modern hypothermia hardware complex, the survival rates and, most importantly, the functional health of newborns in our region will increase significantly. We will be able to save more children’s lives and this greatly inspires all the hospital doctors in our difficult work,” said Kairat Kydyralievich Zhetibayev, chief medical officer of Zhambyl Oblast Multidisciplinary Hospital.

The hypothermia package worth more than 20 million tenge, includes the automatic hypothermia unit itself and an amplitude electroencephalography monitor. All together they help doctors monitor and efficiently adjust the therapy used for saving and care of newborns. In addition, after installion of equipment, the Foundation always trains doctors on the correct practical use of new units. According to estimates of AYALA CF, within several years this approach will save the lives and intelligence of hundreds of children born in the Zhambyl oblast.

“Halyk Bank has been supporting the charitable initiatives of AYALA Foundation for many years, helping to strengthen the physical and intellectual health of children in Kazakhstan. Over the 15 years of implementing joint charitable projects, we have allocated more than 200 million tenge to equip intensive care units of children’s hospitals, as well as to help large families in need. This year, designated by the Head of State as the Year of Children, we supported the project of equipping the intensive care unit of the Perinatal Centre of the Zhambyl Oblast Hospital with the essential modern medical equipment. We are confident that this assistance will help save and preserve the main value of our country- the lives of the younger generation,” said Umut Shayakhmetova, Chairman of the Board of Halyk Bank.

It is worth noting that earlier in 2020, AYALA Foundation, with the support of Halyk Bank, donated a hypothermia hardware complex to the Oblast Perinatal Centre No. 3 of the city of Turkestan. In just 5 years, the Foundation has equipped 9 perinatal and research centres in Kazakhstan with hypothermia units. Thanks to this, the lives of 205 newborns have been saved. The Foundation plans to donate another 5 hardware complexes to oblast perinatal centres of the country in the second half of the year.

For 15 years of its work, as part of the Let’s Breathe Life project and other initiatives, AYALA CF has donated more than 1,100 units of resuscitation medical equipment to 67 Kazakhstani healthcare institutions worth 2.2 billion tenge. More than 200 thousand children have been saved in Kazakhstan thanks to this equipment and the knowledge that doctors received during skills improvement training at the Foundation’s free courses.