Kononenko Bohdan

The large Kononenky family is asking for help to save their little daughter Bohdanka. At 1.5 months old, the girl was diagnosed with a congenital heart defect – a secundum atrial septal defect. Since then she has been constantly in hospitals and intensive care units. When she was brought to Kyiv for examination, the defect had enlarged, and she urgently needs surgery to implant an intracardiac device (occluder); waiting any longer could be life‑threatening for the child. Let’s join together to save Bohdanka’s heart!

The Kononenko family raises four children (girls) and has the status of a large family. The oldest is 7 years old, the second is 5.5, Bohdan is 2.5, and the youngest is 5.5 months. Mom is on maternity leave. Dad has no official job, does occasional side work, and currently isn’t working at all because of the military situation in the Luhansk region where the family lives. Surviving on the child support, which has been paid irregularly lately, is practically impossible, let alone affording an operation. Grandma works in Kyiv as a dishwasher in a restaurant and shares a room with two coworkers. After hearing in the news that the last trains from Luhansk will run until June 23, she brought her daughter and the four children to Kyiv. Now the room is home to four adult women and four children. Dad remains in the Luhansk region and helps the Ukrainian army as he can: delivering fruits and vegetables from his garden, transporting drinking water from a well, and so on.

Bohdanochka is very active, talkative, loves poems, dancing, singing. But because of her illness it is hard for her to do these things. Let’s together help the Kononenko family believe in a miracle and, despite the difficult situation in the East of the country, save the little Bohdanochka’s heart. Lyubov Podoliaka, a resident of Luhansk region and Bohdanochka’s grandmother, asks for help from all caring people: “My little granddaughter Bohdanochka needs surgery, the family needs to raise 44 940 UAH. Bohdanochka is now 2 years and 5 months old. Her diagnosis: congenital heart defect – secondary defect of the atrial septum. The child needs heart surgery, doctors recommend performing it and installing an occluder.”

An occluder is a medical instrument that is introduced through the femoral artery and closes a hole in the interatrial septum. In this way, heart surgery is performed without opening the chest, making it less traumatic, and it is widely used for similar heart defects. Unfortunately, only open surgeries in Ukraine for children with congenital heart defects in the children's cardiac centers of Kyiv are provided free of charge. These are cavity‑opening procedures that require a chest incision. But Bohdan needs an operation specifically with an occluder, which costs money.

The girl's heart defect was discovered when she was 1.5 months old, and since then she has spent all her time in hospitals and intensive care units. While she was waiting to be taken for examination in Kyiv, we hoped the hole in her heart would close on its own, but according to the latest examination it has enlarged, and doctors said that surgery is unavoidable, and waiting any longer could be life‑threatening for the child. I, the grandmother, cannot provide assistance, because bringing the child to Kyiv for examination has already plunged me into debt. I beg all caring people to respond and save my granddaughter!

Since the child needed an urgent operation, we decided not to delay and immediately asked the UBB for help in raising funds for an intracardiac implant, to together help Bohdanka Kononenko. The project started on 15.07.14. The fundraising was carried out using an online service. A story was also filmed on the ICTV channel Facts, which aired on 24.07.14. The project involved 157 donors and on 30.07.14 the required amount was collected, thanks to all the caring and compassionate people.

As soon as we learned the joyful news that the required amount had been collected, we immediately began calling Bohdanka’s grandmother, but unfortunately we couldn’t reach her for two days because the line was temporarily unavailable. We called every phone number the Kononenko family gave us, yet we still couldn’t get through. We didn’t know what to do when, suddenly, Bohdanka’s grandmother called us herself to find out whether the money had been gathered. It turned out that after the story aired on ICTV, the landlord of their communal apartment evicted the family onto the street, leaving them with no choice but to go live at the train station; their phones ran out of battery, so we couldn’t reach them. Hearing this story, we could not stay on the sidelines and immediately called the UBB to see if they had a relief operator who assists refugees from Eastern Ukraine. The UBB promptly contacted the help operators of the Charity Foundation “City of Happy Children”. They kindly agreed to help the Kononenko family. The family moved to live at the Charity Foundation “City of Happy Children”, where they were warmly welcomed and provided with all the necessary support: three meals a day, accommodation, a psychologist, etc.

14.08.14 at the Scientific and Practical Center of Pediatric Cardiology and Cardiac Surgery of the Ministry of Health of Ukraine, the endovascular surgeon Andriy Vitaliyovych Maksymenko successfully performed an operation to implant an intracardiac device in Bohdana Kononenko. Thanks to the intervention, the child was discharged from the clinic healthy. Now Bohdana’s heart is healthy and she will be able to live a full life! After the operation, the child and her grandmother returned to the BF “City of Happy Children”, which had already found them long‑term housing through social media. They also bought school uniforms for the children who start school on September 1. The owner of a house in the village near Bila Church kindly provided the house for an extended period, and the head of the village council promised to register them soon so that the mother could receive assistance for the children. On September 1, the two older girls went to school. Bohdanka feels well, has become more active and is gradually gaining weight.

Full name: Kononenko Bohdana Serhiyivna, 03.10.2011

City: Luhansk Oblast

Diagnosis: congenital heart defect – secondary defect of the interatrial septum

All details and documentation are here.