Commentary

Lisa Shymko

Chair of the Guardian Angels Ukraine Project

        TORONTO-KYIV: The Guardian Angels Ukraine veterans’ rehabilitation project, initiated by the LUCW, under the auspices of the International Council in Support of Ukraine, has announced the newest phase of its ongoing activities in the area of veterans health services, knowledge-exchange and educational reform.

        Launched in December 2014, the Canadian project began as a response to the urgent need to provide treatment for injured Ukrainian soldiers wounded as result of Russia's massive military incursion into eastern Ukraine. The project works with various levels of the Ukrainian and Canadian governments, academic institutions, NGO's, military and civilian facilities, and charitable foundations. The rehabilitation project collaborates with international experts from this multidisciplinary field of health care, including physiatrists, physiotherapists, occupational therapists, psychologists, academics, rehabilitation centre managers, and many others.

        Col. Dr. Vsevolod Stebliuk, who has served as Advisor on Medical Issues to Ukraine's Minister of Defence and is currently Vice-Dean of the Ukrainian Military Medical Academy for Clinical Practice, is the project's implementing partner in Ukraine.

        In striving to improve physical and psychological rehab services for Ukraine's wounded veterans, the project has spearheaded efforts to establish the first Master's-level program in Physical Therapy in Kyiv, Ukraine's capital.

        Working to facilitate educational reform in the field of rehabilitation science, the Guardian Angels Ukraine Project is pleased to announce that it has signed Memoranda of Cooperation with several academic institutions. The official partnerships in Ukraine will include the National Technical University of Ukraine “Kyiv Polytechnic Institute”(NTUU) and the Ukrainian Military Medical Academy (UMMA), Ukraine's highest military medical institution which also serves as the scientific and medical center of excellence for Ukraine's Ministry of Defence. The UMMA has introduced an advanced training program for doctors in medico-psychological rehabilitation as well as physical rehabilitation.

        As Ukraine moves to introduce international standards for education and training in this field, the latter academic institutions are preparing to become the first universities in Ukraine's capital region to offer master's-level programs in physical therapy and occupational therapy. Ukraine’s military hospitals and rehabilitation facilities, such as the Irpin Military Hospital and rehab centre, will provide the sites for clinical practicum-internships.

        The Guardian Angels Ukraine Project gratefully acknowledges Canada's Queen's University for its significant cooperation. The project recognizes the ongoing support provided by Dr. Alice Aiken, Associate Director of the School of Rehabilitation Therapy (Physical Therapy Program) and Scientific Director of the Canadian Institute for Military and Veteran Health Research (CIMVHR). We also acknowledge the guidance and assistance of Dr. Heather Aldersey, Assistant Professor, School of Rehabilitation Therapy and Director (AHEAD Project) at the International Centre for the Advancement of Community Based Rehabilitation (ICACBR), in facilitating professional collaboration on curriculum development for Ukraine.

        Since its launch, the Guardian Angels Ukraine rehabilitation project has marked several milestones and achieved a number of firsts:

         Working with Ukraine's Ministry of Defence, the project helped finance Ukraine's first veterans rehab centre combining physical and psychological rehabilitation at the Irpin Military Hospital near Kyiv, which opened in April 2015. Close to 2,000 veterans in Ukraine required medical rehabilitation in 2015. In just the span of six months, over 500 soldiers received treatment at the Irpin hospital.

         The Canadian-sponsored project financed the first fact-finding mission in Canada between Ukrainian medical practitioners treating injured veterans, and Canadian experts in the field of rehabilitation medicine.

         The project has provided its Ukrainian partners with staff support, medical and therapeutic equipment, and new technologies. The Canadian project acquired IREX, the first interactive rehabilitation therapy system to be used in Ukraine, produced by GestureTek. IREX uses immersive video gesture control technology to place patients into a virtual environment where they are guided through clinician-prescribed therapeutic exercise regimes. All therapy sessions are tracked using a sophisticated camera tracking technology which enables session reporting that can then be used to track and compare patient progress.

         The Canadian project was the first to introduce animal-assisted therapy to treat Ukraine's returning soldiers. Since upwards of 30% of returning veterans display some form of psychological trauma and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, the project also employs innovative approaches to psychological therapies for returning Ukrainian servicemen. The Hero's Companion project pairs therapy and service dogs with veterans suffering from the visible and invisible injuries inflicted by time spent in combat operations. The program was launched in Kyiv and Dnipropetrovsk and plans to expand to other regions of Ukraine. The Guardian Angels Ukraine project also supports dolphin-assisted therapy for veterans employed at the "Khmilnyk" Military sanatorium in Vinnytsia.

         The GAU project is also the first Canada-Ukraine veterans’ rehabilitation project to cooperate with the Head of Rehabilitation Medicine, Canadian Forces Health Services Group (Department of National Defence). The collaboration resulted in Ukraine's first international conference on veterans' physical and mental health whose participants included experts from the Canadian military held at the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine as well as the first Canadian-sponsored master classes in physiotherapy and occupational therapy.

         The project's implementing partner, Col. Dr. Vsevolod Stebliuk, one of Ukraine’s leading authorities on veterans’ rehabilitation, was the first Ukrainian military doctor invited to participate in the 2015 CIMVHR conference in Quebec City, where he discussed the effects of PTSD, as well as the challenges facing Ukraine as it struggles to reform its veterans' health care system.

        As Lisa Shymko, Chair of the Guardian Angels Ukraine Project has noted, “the crisis in rehab services in Ukraine is very real.” Since the start of Russia’s aggression in February of 2014, over 9,000 Ukrainians have been killed (of whom 2,600 were servicemen) and over 20,000 injured — of whom 9,000 are soldiers. “As Ukraine rushes to reform its education system and introduce internationally-recognized standards of rehab services at its military hospitals and private institutions, we are proud to facilitating Ukraine in achieving one more milestone — the establishment of the country’s first Master’s-level programs in Physical Therapy and Occupational Therapy in Kyiv.”