It was a difficult year, we faced a powerful enemy – Covid-19. We have lost colleagues and relatives, our way of life has changed a lot and such words as “lockdown”, “quarantine”, “self-isolation” have appeared in our lexicon. We are forced to adapt our working regime to the needs of the country in the new conditions, to postpone scheduled inspections and operations. We were sometimes faced with a difficult choice – whose life to save because of a catastrophic lack of ventilators. And against the background of Covid-19, cardiovascular diseases have become even less controlled, and once again we want to remind you not to ignore this fact and seek medical help in a timely manner.

Yes, it was a difficult year, but we survived it with dignity. Hundreds of patients treated with Covid-19, thousands operated this year, we performed 9 out of 10 transplants made in Ukraine, implanted a pacemaker in a pregnant patient, the weight of our youngest patient was 900 g, and the age of our oldest patient was 101 years.

We thank all the teams that together created the history of Ukrainian transplantology in 2020: the Heart Institute of the Ministry of Health of Ukraine, the Clinical Hospital of Emergency Medicine of Lviv, the National Institute of Surgery and Transplantology named after O. Shalimov, Kyiv City Clinical Hospital of Emergency Medical Care.

We express our sincere condolences and words of gratitude to the families of donors who gave other people the opportunity to live.

We are on the right path in the development of cardiac surgery in Ukraine. We thank the team of the Heart Institute led by Professor Borys Todurov for fruitful and dedicated work throughout the year, we appreciate and are proud of each of you.