Collaborating for better results

In Kiev, Ukraine, the Okhmadyt hospital has many similarities with Great Ormond Street Hospital. Care is free at the point of delivery, it’s the largest children’s hospital and centre for paediatric care in the country, it’s well established, having been set up in the 1930s, and it provides a high level of care for children with cancer.

However, while many parallels can be drawn, equally there are stark areas of difference that have been highlighted by a blossoming partnership between Okhmadyt and Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH).

Established last year, the haematology partnership sees good practice shared between the two sets of staff, with particular emphasis placed upon the education and empowerment of nurses based in the Ukrainian hospital.

As part of the programme, Dr Olga Stetsiuk, Head of the Day Care Chemotherapy Department, recently visited GOSH to better understand the processes at work.

“Having spent time at the hospital, I’ve learnt so much about how the hospital works and how it has achieved its position as an international leader. Here at Great Ormond Street Hospital you attach great importance to the training and education of nurses, you have excellent facilities and excellent ratios of staff to patients. These are the main differences from my own hospital back in the Ukraine. For example, in our intensive care unit we may have 10-plus patients to one nurse. Here it’s one-to-one care."

In May 2013, Dr Nick Goulden, Haematology Consultant, and two senior nurses will go to Kiev to deliver training for the nurses based at Okhmadyt. He says the visit will benefit both hospitals as it will be an exchange of ideas.

"They may look after patients in a different way but still have very good results, so it’ll be good for us to understand how they achieve such positive outcomes. Furthermore, this is what we should be doing as an international teaching hospital – it’s part of our core objective of improving paediatriac healthcare worldwide.”

Dr Stetsiuk is equally positive about the benefits for the nurses under her leadership as, after the training, “the nurses will understand how important they are in the system of treatment. In the Ukraine, less prestige and control is attached to nursing, but in the UK it’s clear that they’re a vital part of the system and we want to empower our nurses to take on responsibility. When visiting Great Ormond Street Hospital, I asked a nurse whether she felt her work was prestigious and she answered ‘Yes’ without hesitation. This is how I want our nurses to feel.”

Points of difference and challenges remain for the staff in Kiev compared with their London counterparts. For example, in the Ukraine they don’t have pharmacists who can take work away from doctors. Nevertheless, the developing partnership between Okhmadyt and GOSH is helping both sides as they strive to do their best for children with cancer.