Netherlands-based foundation sends neonatal ambulance to Ukraine

A custom-made neonatal ambulance drove with Stichting Zeilen van Vrijheid’s seventh humanitarian convoy to Ukraine on Saturday. It will arrive in Odesa filled with donations for babies, including bottles, pacifiers and formula.

The ambulance fulfills a special request from Odesa Regional Pediatric Hospital. In recent months, the hospital has seen an influx of pregnant women and new mothers evacuating war-torn regions in eastern Ukraine. However, it only had one ambulance for babies and children.

“It is built to be able to transport the smallest babies who are born prematurely, as small as 1.5 kilograms,” Źmicier Žaleźničenka of Zeilen van Vrijheid told the NL Times. “We hope that it will help this ambulance move these kids from other regions of southern Ukraine, that they will be safe and get a healthy start to life.”

Pavlo Fednov, an advisor to Ukraine’s ministry of health, is driving the ambulance from Amsterdam to its destination in Odesa. The convoy departed from Amsterdam early Saturday morning.

The neonatal ambulance is equipped with an incubator to keep prematurely-born infants at the right temperature, an ultrasonic scanner and a monitor and defibrillator, Žaleźničenka said. Zeilen van Vrijheid worked with Diac Medical, a Harligen factory that refurbishes ambulances, to build the vehicle.

Zeilen van Vrijheid began on March 1 as a group of volunteers, who pooled their resources to send medical supplies to Ukraine. It has now expanded with the help of donations and partnerships to send 44 ambulances, one fire truck and 100 tons of humanitarian aid into Ukraine.

“It’s quite astonishing how we got on our feet,” Žaleźničenka said. “We never thought that in two months we would be able to get anywhere close to 50 ambulances. Here we are, and we have many more plans.”