Rehabilitation of Injured Children 2017 – the project of Rinat Akhmetov Humanitarian Center

A year ago, in March 2016, the Humanitarian Center started a project called "Rehabilitation of Injured Children". During this period 58 Donbas children, who had serious injuries and shrapnel wounds, underwent rehabilitation. During the online conference at Segodnya Multimedia, the Center's Coordinator Rimma Fil and the Head of "Targeted Assistance" direction Yuliia Gerasymenko told about further implementation of the project.

The special guests of the event were Natalya Ivankova, a neurologist and reflexologist in Arctic sanatorium in Berdiansk, and Andrii Sadovnyk, trauma surgeon and prosthetics engineer at ORTTECH - the Centre for prosthetic and orthopaedic rehabilitation.

"Rinat Akhmetov always takes the destinies of all injured children very personally. And sets the goal to help them as much as possible. The Humanitarian Center's rehabilitation project literally put the affected Donbas children on their feet. During the project implementation we saw that children with especially severe injuries needed further recovery. That's why by decision of Rinat Akhmetov, the program will be continued in 2017 and aimed at those children, who need another rehabilitation course", – Rimma Fil, the Humanitarian Center's Coordinator, shared.

As part of "Rehabilitation of Injured Children 2017" project, assistance will be provided to children from 0 to 18 years old, who got severe wounds and visible injuries due to the military operations in Donbas. Among them are children with multiple injuries after shrapnel wounds to the head, face, body, arms and legs, children who went through amputation of limbs, children with gunshot injuries and after severe burns.

According to Natalya Ivankova, the new course of rehabilitation is necessary when there is some positive dynamics, but no complete recovery. "That's why the Humanitarian Center's project is very timely. Thanks to another rehabilitation, children have an opportunity to continue their treatment and restore their health", – the neurologist said at the briefing.

In 2017 severely injured children will be provided with help according to the following directions:

• paying for rehabilitation courses in specialized centres of Ukraine;
• purchasing the means of individual rehabilitation;
• prostheses;
• orthoses.

"Severe injuries with loss of limbs require constant prosthetics. Children have their prostheses changed frequently, as they grow. In Ukraine children are provided with free prostheses. However, in difficult cases or when there is a need for expensive prosthesis of a high degree of activity, the Humanitarian Center provides targeted assistance with prostheses and orthoses for injured children", – the traumatologist Andrii Sadovnyk explained during the conference.

As of today, the basic needs of severely injured children are:

• recovery of musculoskeletal system;
• rehabilitative treatment of internal organs;
• condition after operative long-term treatment;
• neurology treatment;
• prosthesis.

The schedule of rehabilitation activities as part of "Rehabilitation of Injured Children – 2017" project will be formed individually. Depending on the injury types and recommendations of doctors, specialists will select a sanatorium or technical means of rehabilitation. The rehabilitation course in health resort will last 21 days for one child.

"We see that our assistance remains highly-demanded. The shelling in Donbas is continuing. The Humanitarian Center is ready to keep on helping injured children in the future. It is very important for us that every child could take a step forward to the restoration of his/her health", –Yuliia Gerasymenko, the Head of Targeted Assistance program at Rinat Akhmetov Humanitarian Center, emphasized.

Over the entire period of the Center's operation, 8,088 people were provided with targeted assistance for urgent treatment and surgeries from Rinat Akhmetov Humanitarian Center. More than 3,500 of them are children.