"State-of-the-art equipment virtually never before seen in Poland". GOCC goes shopping after record finale

The final result of this year's GOCC Grand Finale collected PLN 243,259,389.25 (EUR 52,028,528.98 according to the exchange rate of 31 March 2023) which means it was nearly PLN 19 million higher than in 2022 and almost PLN 89 million higher than the preliminary result of the day of the fundraiser.

"The main objective of the fundraiser was to collect money for purchasing state-of-the-art medical equipment allowing for a fast sepsis diagnosis. A quick diagnosis is crucial for implementing effective, targeted treatment. Let’s remember that time is of great importance here. The patient may experience multiple organ system failures, shock, and even death within a few hours. Research shows that any delay in diagnosing sepsis and administering an effective antibiotic with a one-hour delay increases the risk of death by 8 per cent," the GOCC said at its website.

"On 22 May – nearly 4 months after the January fundraiser and 2 months after revealing the final result of the collection – the GOCC Foundation commences the 66th Open Tender to buy medical equipment facilitating the fight against sepsis. The negotiations with medical companies will take a few days before we complete all the purchases for 169 laboratories across the country," the statement added.

"The stakes are high! We need to administer as much as PLN 200,000,000! It will be the biggest Open Tender in the history of the Great Orchestra."

The GOCC Foundation held a press conference on Wednesday. "Sepsis is one of the biggest killers in the whole public health care. More than 50 million people worldwide suffer from sepsis, while 11 million die becasue of it. In Poland we don't have data because, despite NIK's (Poland's Supreme Audit Office - edit.) recommendations, no database has been created that would register all cases. All we know is that it's between 50,000-100,000 cases each year," said heart surgeon and co-founder of the Great Orchestra of Christmas Charity (GOCC) Professor Bogdan Maruszewski. He stressed that "a person dies due to sepsis every 2.8 seconds". "This includes both children and adults."

We are purchasing state-of-the-art equipment virtually never before seen in Poland - of course, that's because single devices did appear," he added.

The GOCC chairman Jurek Owsiak stressed the fast pace at which the Orchestra was working. "It never happened before that we would be spending this money literally two months after summing up the Finale."

"After these two days, and the purchasing is still ongoing, I'm confident we will beat sepsis," he added.

"We preparing before each purchasing session. We would never dare to buy anything for this collected money on our own," Owsiak added and stressed that each tender was supervised by 30 people, including 14 experts.

"The open tender allows us to speak with large companies, we can discuss, negotiate, and even change the final specification together with all bidders, amend it in order to buy the best possible equipment," the chairman said.

After the conference, Jurek Owsiak announced that the GOCC - together with SWPS University and RESQL program - would support Polish children's psychiatry with a special application and innovative system helping schools to solve problems related with peer violence.

"The foundation has decided, so that we could work together in Polish schools. The RESQL program has been designed for schools, we really like it and want to participate. For starters, we've decided to buy 50 such applications, so that we could address Polish schools, also thanks to our determination and means. We should talk about it more, as it could really help to lift up the spirits," he said.

"This is only proves that NGOs know the best way to make up for what the system often forgets. We don't want to fight the system, we just want to do our job - when there's a loophole, we can fix it," Owsiak explained.

The Great Orchestra of Christmas Charity plans to purchase: