In April, we shared a Sunday Story about the need for prosthetics for amputees in Ukraine. We are happy to share this update from Jaco on the progress of this project, including a successful report of the first 4 out of 20 planned tests.
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I have been told that there are 70.000 amputees already in the Ukraine (There are numbers between 50k and 140k floating in the media). It is overwhelming, but even more so when you understand that an amputee needs about 6 prosthetic sockets until the stump matures. That is more than 400.000 prostheses to be manufactured. PARALYZING for the industry which has too few and poorly educated prosthetic technicians. We are committed to make a positive impact there.
Contrary to my expectations, it has been difficult to penetrate the Ukrainian "prosthetic industrial complex” (if you accept this referral) and start gaining trust that we can serve their soldiers appropriately. We have proposed a solution which will help the amputees (and the industry) with adjustable sockets. This will lead to shrinking the need of more than 400.000 sockets to about 200.000 prosthetic sockets. This time around, we have received logistic support from a colonel who is the military attache of the Ukrainian Embassy in Bucharest. They have now identified the amputees we served last week.
All four of the special forces soldiers we served last week had their amputations due to anti-personnel mines, which they call “toe poppers.” These mines have been designed to maim, not kill, and remove the injured soldier plus two others to care for or carry that soldier off the battlefield. It is expected that the mine fields will continue to create amputees for many years to come even after this war has ended. God willing, it will end soon.
Their war time stories are horrific. They wear a GoPro type camera during their missions and I saw two of the guys' footage when they stepped on the mines. The wounds from shrapnel is shocking when they remove a shirt. It is unimaginable.
Our candidates have unfortunately not been ‘fresh’ amputees as we have requested, but we did serve them in the best way we could by providing them with new liners, sockets and feet as they needed. We have done this in order to establish our competence and willingness to serve and develop the trust and collaboration with the small network which we are developing within the Ukrainian military.
As an advantage, with their previous experiences in fitting prosthetics elsewhere, these soldiers told me that their experience with us in Oradea was the best they had. 3 of the 4 couldn’t leave Ukraine since the war started and this was like a short holiday (at peace) for them. They would’ve liked to stay another week or so…
During this week, we helped them to access a gym, where they could also work out. The walked through our town of Oradea most evenings.
We managed to remain within the amount we budgeted for and thank you for helping us provide for these men.
I attach a couple of pictures. We had to blur the faces of the Ukrainian soldiers, but not of the British volunteer fighting with them since March 2022.
Please let me know if you have any questions or suggestions.
With our appreciation and my best regards,
Jaco
