Surgery - just a halfway to recovery

At the State Institution “Institute of Neurosurgery” the Academician A. P. Romadanov of the Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, the leading medical institution of the national level, 20-year-old equipment is used. Funding from the state budget has not been allocated for years and the employees of the department do not even hope for it. Still the Institute continues saving lives and improving health of the Ukrainian people! Our goal is to help them in it as much as we can. Zaporuka Foundation raises money for equipment for post-operative cycle of patients’ rehabilitation to donate to the Institute.

Operations are performed in 15 operating rooms and it means about 6,000 surgeries a year. The majority of the patients (among them up to 500 children) require post-operative rehabilitation. The equipment used now wore out long ago. Sometimes the nurses – and it is not a joke – have to solder or stick together the parts of the devices because the technicians refuse to do it. However, a surgery is only a half way to recovery.

Most children require longer rehabilitation and it is always better to start it immediately after surgery or injury. At the Institute the practice of rehabilitation physiotherapy has been elaborated for decades. But now the course of treatment can be broken because of obsolete equipment.

Here you can see the most typical examples of cases of children who underwent rehabilitation treatment at the Institute of Neurosurgery:

7-year-old Diana was hospitalized at the Institute because of a craniocerebral injury – a TV set fell on the girl. The doctors diagnosed calvarium and skull base fractures as well as brain tissue damage. It was a miracle that the girl survived but there was a serious threat of total disability. The girl spent nearly two months in an intensive care ward. Later as a result of physical therapy the girl started recovering. After sessions with “Amplipuls” together with “Miorytm” she began to move her foot and her fingers. It is necessary to understand the importance of timely rehabilitation – precious time during which complete damage of the affected nerves could happen has not been lost.

Pelepets Varia. The girl was very little, less than a year. She had been treated at the Institute of Neurosurgery because of severe disorders – congenital neuritis of the facial nerve. Normal eye movements were almost completely absent. If the girl hadn’t received a series of procedures with the help of ultrasonic exposure and the device “Amplipuls”, she would have remained visually disable for the rest of her life without the possibility of social adaptation.

If this vital equipment comes out of order in the immediate future the children with similar problems will be doomed to disability. Despite the fact that these devices are not very expensive, the Institute cannot find money for them. We plan to purchase the following equipment: the galvanizator “Potok 1”, the device “Mioritm 021”, the device “Amplipuls-6”.