Two children were taken to Pleven in critical condition from the Children’s Hospital “Prof. Dr. Ivan Mitev” in Sofia

A specialised ambulance and a team from the Maternal and Child Health Clinic ‘Mama and I’ travelled from Pleven to Sofia to take two children in life-threatening condition and treat them back in Pleven. The little patients, a boy and a girl aged two months, were initially admitted to the neonatology ward of the state-run specialist children’s hospital in Sofia. Due to the inability of the hospital in Sofia to provide them with the necessary intensive monitoring and care and with the argument that they have already exceeded the age for neonatology, they turned for assistance to their colleagues in Pleven. The doctors from Pleven set up an organization and the children were transported urgently and placed in the intensive care unit of ‘Mama and I’, where the head of paediatrics, Dr. Velimir Simov, and his team took care of them.

The children were diagnosed with hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy, an impairment of brain function due to reduced oxygen flow to the brain, and with oesophageal atresia, a condition in which the oesophagus does not connect to the stomach, but ends in a “blind pouch” and the ingested food cannot reach the child’s stomach. The rich clinical experience of the Pleven pediatricians, the high-tech equipment with the most advanced capabilities to support and preserve the life of children makes ‘Mama and I’ the only place in the country where adequate intensive, long-term and free care can be provided for children with such severe diagnoses.

“At ‘Mama and I’ we work well with colleagues from all over Bulgaria, no matter whether the hospital is private, municipal or state-owned. We do not hesitate to provide transport and medical team at our own expense, to travel to the farthest point of the country to help our children,” said Dr. Velimir Simov. He specified that the case with the children from the Children’s Hospital in Sofia is not the first for the paediatricians of ‘Mama and I’. Just a few days ago the team in Pleven had also provided assistance to their colleagues from ‘Maichin Dom’ hospital, and young patients from the National Cardiology Hospital in the capital are to be transported to the clinic.

The original article is available here in Bulgarian.