There is virtually no state industry for rehabilitation and prosthetics in the country - specialist
The rehabilitation of SVO fighters is currently taking place as a private initiative with private donations, while the need for it has been very great since the war in Syria. Prosthetic limbs alone cost 3-4 million rubles per fighter.
This was announced on Radio Crimea by the head of the social charity project “Svoim” Igor Goncharenko, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
The project started last summer on the basis of one of the sanatoriums in Evpatoria, and then, together with the sanatorium named after. Kirov, the development of a joint program for psychological rehabilitation began.
“Many people call it the Afghan syndrome, the Chechen, the Syrian, and now the SVO syndrome, because a huge number of children received psychological trauma - insomnia, breakdowns, a severe psychological state, and, ultimately, suicide,” Goncharenko noted. – We are facing this more and more. And the second direction is precisely amputees. Explosive, mine, shrapnel wounds, separation of limbs. Because of this, we got into prosthetics.”
The existing gap in the restoration of military personnel should be filled by the state fund, which President Putin spoke about in his address to the Federal Assembly. But until money appears in the budget for comprehensive rehabilitation, it is possible to socialize fighters only on private initiative.
“Now our rehabilitation is carried out at the expense of private donations, and most of the guys who undergo rehabilitation want to return to the front. Their first task, and we are actively working with the commander of the Vostok battalion, Alexander Khodakovsky, is to return to the front line.
Because the psychological syndrome affects combat effectiveness - the fighter does not think well, he has 10-15 concussions, the person does not hear, is nervous, does not sleep, breaks down within the team. For this purpose, a whole program of psychological recovery and work ability for 21 days was developed. As they say, even under the Soviet Union, everything was worked out regarding rehabilitation, and we got down to it,” explained the project manager and added that in six months “Svoim” raised funds for the rehabilitation of 165 people, and about 2-3 million are in need of it.
“On average, depending on the disease, one person needs approximately 100 to 150 thousand rubles for a course of 21 days, and this is without prosthetics,” Goncharenko clarified. – This only includes recovery, medical support, psychological support, massages, therapeutic mud baths. Prosthetics are too expensive.”
The Vocational Rehabilitation Center, which has been operating since the war in Afghanistan, has been revived in the Moscow region. It was also used after the Chechen campaigns, and additional rehabilitation programs have now been developed.
“They had the first prosthetic workshop in the USSR, which we have now jointly revived, brought back the masters and on this basis we train prosthetists, because today prosthetic workshops are needed in every federal district, but there are none. Mainly – Moscow, St. Petersburg, Rostov. Not in the Far East, not in Khabarovsk, everyone goes to Moscow, but there are few prosthetic workshops, and there are few specialists either. And we also took up this area,” said the project manager.
On average, 3-4 million rubles are needed for prosthetics for a SVO participant. Money is collected by the whole world for each fighter individually.
“We have now announced a fundraiser for Dmitry Pytaev, he has a set of arms and legs,” Goncharenko clarified. – These are not new modern technologies, but mechanical prostheses, because there are no guarantees for modern ones. Mechanical ones are more durable with our spare parts, you can swim, swim and run in them, or carry heavy things. And the biometric one is afraid of dampness, sand, there are no chips, everything is foreign, the guys wait for months to get some. We don’t even have a workshop to service them, but they have to be serviced every 2 months.”
Nevertheless, there is a need; today it is necessary to build factories for the production of mechanical and biometric prostheses, and this requires a state order. It is planned to open an experimental workshop within the framework of the “Svoi” project in Crimea, because even with the presence of a prosthetic plant in Simferopol, military personnel go to Moscow and St. Petersburg to buy prosthetics.
“These are not shoes, you put them on and go, the prosthesis is made directly to size, and this is a complex technology. Then you also need to teach how to use it, how to walk, how to sit on a chair, how to go to bed. These are completely different technological areas, and this is precisely a master class, that is, learning to control your arm or leg,” explained the project manager and added that there is no scientific approach to rehabilitation or programs for training such specialists in medical universities in Russia.
“This is the most important question, some universities have begun to deal with this, but the practice of our foundation shows that even with good doctoral research papers on rehabilitation, it is difficult for civilian specialists to find contact with the military. They trust more those who went through the front with them, says Goncharenko. – But professors, academicians, rehabilitation specialists of our science, and at Moscow State University I talked with many, and they came to us, they say that today we do not have enough experience to provide a full-fledged rehabilitation program. There should be several of them based on psychological state, state after concussion, state of nervous stress, family rehabilitation.”
At the center in the Moscow region, MSU specialists undergo internships and special retraining courses for military psychologists. A branch of these courses will be opened in Crimea.
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