About Us

PAUL O'GORMAN LIFELINE Registered Charity No 1108060

Long Barn, Houghton, Arundel, W Sussex BN18 9LN, U.K.

e mail info@lifelinegb.org web www.lifelinegb.org

LIFELINE ITALIA ONLUS

via Marcanova 6, 35137 Padova, Italia.

e mail: info@lifelineitalia.org web www.lifelineitalia.org

We believe that every human life is precious, and that it is worth

doing everything to try to save a child’s life.

It is an injustice that children should not have access to good medicine and treatment just because they are poor and their country is poor. Children are children, wherever they were born.

Our patients have very serious illnesses, and we are not always successful. But, even when we fail, each child is given the best treatment available, regardless of cost.

Many of our patients need Bone Marrow Transplants, a very

difficult and expensive treatment . In the last 15 years we

have arranged more than 123 transplants.

Many Kyrgyz children have bone cancer. Before our work they

all died. Now we save two-thirds of them and, with specialist

surgery in Italy, arms and legs are saved from amputation.

We provide medicines for hundreds of poor children each year.

Each application is reviewed by our medical advisers and

delivered to the child’s hospital to ensure that our money

is correctly spent.

Why and how we work

Helping children

with life-threatening

illnesses in

poor countries

We are very lucky in Great Britain: we have a marvellous National Health Service, which looks after us when we are ill, and the treatment is free.

But there are many countries in the world that are too poor to treat their children, and children often die because they lack the necessary medicines or treatment.

LIFELINE has been working for 15 years to bring hope to children in poor countries. We deal mainly with children who have leukaemia or other cancers, but all children with life-threatening illnesses are eligible. We work mainly in Kyrgyzstan, Georgia and Ukraine, but over the years we have helped children from many countries.

Republic of

KYRGYZSTAN

The Kyrgyz Republic is one of the poorest

countries in the world: its average yearly

income is the same as British people earn in

6 days. It has a population of 5 million, and

most of the people live by farming and eat

what they grow. But they are some of the

friendliest and kindest people you could meet.

Children with cancer are treated in the capital

city, Bishkek, and looked after by a wonderful

doctor, Damira Bayzakova. Lifeline has been working with her since 2002. The government is so poor that it can afford very few medicines, so Lifeline provides 75% of cancer drugs. We also take about 35 children each year to Italian hospitals for treatment they cannot receive in Bishkek (we use Italian hospitals because they are much cheaper than British hospitals).

Dr Damira with some of her patients

Ukrainians have a little more money than people in Kyrgyzstan, but they still earn less in one year than British people earn in one month. Cancer and leukaemia are very expensive illnesses to treat, and the problem is that cancer medicines cost the same in Kyrgyzstan and Ukraine as they do in Great Britain. The population of Ukraine is 46 million people, but their economy is too small to afford all the medicines that children need, and parents have to buy them. If the family doesn’t have enough money then the child is not treated. Lifeline buys medicines for poor families and delivers them to the patient in hospital, thereby ensuring that the money is used where it is needed (medicines typically cost £350—£3,000 per patient). We also take about 30 children each year to Italy for treatment when they cannot be treated in Ukrainian hospitals. In total we help about 120 Ukrainian children each year, but there are many more who need help. The children shown are some of the 420 who currently need help to pay for medicines to save their lives.

UKRAINE