Olena Zelenska Foundation Transferred 25 Ambulance Vehicles to Emergency Medicine Centers

09 October 2024
The Foundation team continues to contribute to restoring Ukraine’s healthcare infrastructure, mainly by providing emergency doctors with the necessary special vehicles.

First Lady Olena Zelenska and the Minister of Health of Ukraine, Viktor Liashko, visited one of the emergency medical assistance stations in the Kyiv region. To such Centers in 17 regions of Ukraine, Olena Zelenska Foundation transferred 25 ambulance cars from the Charitable Center “King Salman Humanitarian Aid and Relief Centre” (the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia).

“I talked to the teams of one of the ambulance stations in the Kyiv region and learned about their work: from receiving a call to returning to the base. These people do incredible things every day — they save someone’s life, and we all understand that it is challenging without special transportation. Today, we transferred 25 ambulance vehicles from our foreign partners to the regional Emergency Medicine Centers. I hope they will help paramedics and doctors save even more lives,” Olena Zelenska, the Foundation institutor, said.

The Foundation transfers all 25 vehicles to the Ministry of Health of Ukraine’s emergency medical care and disaster medicine centers in the Volyn, Dnipro, Transcarpathian, Zaporizhzhia, Ivano-Frankivsk, Kyiv, Lviv, Odesa, Rivne, Sumy, Ternopil, Kharkiv, Kherson, Khmelnytskyi, Cherkasy, Chernivtsi, and Chernihiv regions.

As of today, four vehicles already help emergency teams save the lives and health of Sumy city and region residents. The cars were transferred earlier at the Ministry of Health’s request because, after the attack on September 28th on one of the hospital buildings in Sumy city, an urgent need emerged to strengthen the Sumy Regional Emergency Medical Care and Disaster Medicine Center’s fleet.

“Talking to local doctors, we realize that we must continue to work on replenishing the ambulance fleet. After all, unfortunately, the cars are needed permanently. Today, we try to satisfy this demand primarily in the frontline regions and those bordering the russian enemy. This is how, for example, we promptly did it in the Sumy region,” Nina Horbachova, Director of the Foundation, said.

The Minister of Health, Viktor Liashko, and Vitaly Krylyuk, the Head of USPC EMC and DM of the Ministry of Health of Ukraine, were present as 25 vehicles were transferred to Emergency Medicine Centers.


“In the face of constant shelling and targeted attacks on medical infrastructure by russia, we do everything possible to provide proper medical care to our patients. The efficient work of emergency medical services plays a crucial role here. I am grateful to our partners for their support. The transferred 25 vehicles are designed as mobile intensive care units. They will provide necessary care to patients who need additional life support activities during transportation to and between hospitals,” Viktor Liashko, Minister of Health of Ukraine, noted.

Each ambulance vehicle (Ford Transit) complies with Class B and is equipped with the necessary emergency equipment, including a resuscitation unit with a ventilator and defibrillator, which allows doctors to take resuscitation measures on-site.

“Since the beginning of the full-scale war, the EMC brigades’ work has been constantly modernized and adapted to numerous challenges. High-quality equipment is a prerequisite for their work and significantly increases the chances of saving the victims’ lives. We thank Olena Zelenska Foundation for its significant contribution to EMC system development,” Vitaly Krylyuk, the Head of the State Institution “Ukrainian Scientific and Practical Center for Emergency Medical Care and Disaster Medicine of the Ministry of Health of Ukraine”, said.

To date, as part of the initiative to replenish the ambulance fleet, the Foundation team has already transferred over 77 units of special vehicles from partners from Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, South Korea, and Slovenia to doctors.

We continue to involve international partners to support the medical infrastructure of Ukraine, which the russian enemy constantly tries to destroy.

For reference: The Emergency Medicine Centers’ fleet is in critical need of ambulance cars. According to the Ministry of Health of Ukraine, as of today, the enemy has destroyed 261 vehicles and damaged 225 vehicles, and 125 cars have been lost.