Most of the amputated limbs of the military could be saved. Serhiy Soshynsky, the initiator of the national program #SaveAlimb, told about this in an interview with Yevhen Komarovsky.
Svitlana, a mother of two, remembers the Russian shelling in the Kyiv region. Her husband was killed, and she almost lost her leg.
“Two arteries are gone, they were torn off. No one else would take care of me. They wanted to amputate my leg. But there was hope. The specialists of the national program #SaveAlimb undertook to treat the extremely complicated injury. This is the biggest chance in life. The doctors said they could always cut it off, we will try to save it,” says Svitlana.
The woman became a mother for the second time a month before the great war. In March 2022, she and her family came under fire. She recalls that everything was covered with earth. There was a noise in my head. She saw the bones and muscles hanging from her shattered leg. Svitlana has undergone more than 17 surgeries. Doctors are monitoring and supporting her condition.
Thousands of injured Ukrainians are waiting in lines for surgeries, their limbs are festering, and there is a lack of money to buy orthopedic implants. Waiting reduces the likelihood of saving the function of the arms and legs. Muscles atrophy and nerves lose sensitivity.
Dr. Komarovsky spoke in support of the wounded. He is shocked by the situation.
Experts say that over 70% of the injuries are arm and leg injuries. In an interview with the initiator of the national program #SaveA Limb, Serhiy Soshynsky, Dr. Komarovsky highlighted a number of shocking problems in the treatment of the wounded and came to striking conclusions about prosthetics and limb preservation in Ukraine.
Soshynsky calls on the authorities to change the approach to limb salvage in Ukraine.
According to him, the state spends more than UAH 2 million per person on prosthetics. And only UAH 8,635 is spent on preserving an arm or leg.
If the problem of limb preservation is solved, the number of people with disabilities in Ukraine will be much lower.
“Saving a limb is much more profitable for our country than prosthetics. But the funds allocated are catastrophically low. They are spent on roads, stadiums, and movie shootings,” Dr. Komarovsky said.
After quality treatment and rehabilitation, most of the Ukrainian soldiers can return to the Defense Forces. However, the wounded cannot wait much longer. They need the support of the public to solve the urgent problem of financing the preservation of their limbs.
A rifleman, assistant machine gunner Oleh, who was wounded during a street fight in Bakhmut, was also hospitalized with a severe gunshot wound to the shoulder.
“I was in the open sector. They opened fire at us. Across the road was my comrade-in-arms, Sashka. He died in front of me. I was hit in the shoulder. I survived,” says the Ukrainian Armed Forces soldier.
Many specialists in different hospitals in Ukraine fought for Oleh’s shoulder and arm. His left shoulder, left arm, arm fracture and hip injury were completely shattered. The doctors turned to the #SaveAlimb national program for help – the benefactors brought surgeons from Kyiv to Lutsk.
“My shoulder is so finely broken that the doctors have nothing to screw it to, nothing to grab onto. But the doctors are fighting. They performed several surgeries. At the last stage, they fixed the bone with plates. Next up is joint replacement. Now I have been discharged home. It is better to live with two hands than with one. Doctors say that with the right approach, the function of the limb can be restored to 100 percent,” the soldier is happy.
It is beneficial for the media to show people without legs and arms for the sake of an emotional picture. It makes ratings. And a person with intact limbs who has undergone 21 surgeries to save that leg is of little interest to anyone,” the interview says.
According to experts, the expected number of people with amputations is an impressive figure – from 17,000 to 22,600. The #SaveAlimb program aims to reduce this number.
The national program plans to perform 15,000 to 40,000 surgeries within one to three years.
The cost of a saved limb is on average UAH 45,721, and the national program is financing these costs.
The state does not have time to fully provide funding for limb salvage, and local authorities do not understand that such treatment needs to be financed.
Unfortunately, the wounded are forced to seek large sums of money to save their limbs from amputation.
“We all walk the streets of Ukraine every day and notice how our reality is changing. We see more and more young, apparently healthy guys walking with an unsteady gait or holding a stick awkwardly. But if you look closely, you will see prostheses, pain, anger and resentment. It is important that the wounded soldiers who shed their blood for the country do not feel that they are left alone with their problems.
We could live in a completely different world, where 80% of these guys would have their arms and legs. And we can do it. Only together, just as Ukrainians raised money for drones and Bayraktars, for ammunition and vehicles of the Armed Forces, we can support medicine. Everyone should get involved: the state, philanthropists, foundations, ordinary citizens, and doctors. We have to help our soldiers who have been seriously wounded, save their limbs and ensure a completely different quality of life,” says Soshynsky.
Soshynskyi emphasizes the importance of addressing this issue and ensuring effective treatment for wounded soldiers and citizens who have become victims of Russian aggression.