Anita Kienesberger - Childhood Cancer International Europe

Prior to the Russian invasion, Ukraine was averaging about 1,200 new pediatric cancer cases every year, officially, but that has long been considered an undercount.

When the fighting started, we had two choices: either bring essential drug supplies and doctors into Ukraine or bring young cancer patients out of the country for treatment elsewhere. It should be noted that the most common childhood cancer is leukemia, and if you don’t treat this disease very quickly, precisely, and aggressively, the child is likely to die. So within hours of the invasion, St. Jude Hospital, the renowned pediatric cancer center in Memphis, USA, announced that it was setting up a staging area in Bocheniec, Poland and that Ukrainian patients and their families needed to head there as soon as possible.

St. Jude played the leading role coordinating care in the months that followed. Indeed, they reached out to us at CCI-E within days and told us very directly: “We need you.” They said: “You know what is happening in pediatric cancer care throughout Europe. We need your expertise. Work with us.”

I was both surprised and greatly impressed by what I saw. St. Jude was a very organised team, and very disciplined. They said this is an emergency: we must move quickly, and all move as one. We will evaluate as we go. If we make a mistake, we will correct it. But you must listen, they told participating NGOs, and you have to all get in line to get these kids out of the country as fast as possible. This is the mission. Don’t question too much, we don’t have time, the St. Jude team explained. Amazingly, everyone accepted their leadership, and that was critically important.

Another key element was communication. All the support groups had a call together every day at the same time, with the same people. We discussed what happened yesterday and what was needed for tomorrow. “Who can help with this? Who can handle that?” they asked. Everyone was aware of exactly what was happening. This was imperative to achieve success.

Once the children and their parents began arriving in Poland, we had to find hospitals in Europe willing to take them. And we had to organise medical flights to get them there, because the children were very sick. But it all came together, surprisingly, because there was an overwhelming feeling of solidarity, of ‘let’s get this done’. It also permeated our work with respective member organisations in each country to support the children psychosocially and economically.

What was critically important in all of this was that we did not compete. None of the cancer organizations was trying to outdo the other. They would ask how success was achieved on

certain initiatives, so that they could apply it to their own work in the future, but everyone was pulling as one. There was total collaboration, and I found that so impressive.

Looking back on those first few months of our efforts, I am very proud of what we accomplished.

Finally, all of us in the cancer community need to start compiling our own ‘lessons learnt’ from this war, to formally document what succeeded and how. It has been such a profound experience for us all. We owe it to ourselves and to future generations to develop a consensus document of how the cancer community should respond should, God forbid, there is ever another such international crisis.