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New prosthetics hub planned in Ternopil in accordance with WHO standards

Life Bridge Ukraine enters into strategic partnership with Ukrainian Ministry of Health.

Ukrainian Health Minister Viktor Liashko and the organization's founder, Janine von Wolfersdorff, signed a memorandum that is set to fundamentally change the approach to rehabilitating Ukrainians who have lost limbs due to war or injury.

The most important point of the agreement is the creation of a National Center of Excellence for Prosthetics and Orthopedics in Ternopil. The regional psychiatric clinic in Ternopil was selected as the basis for this large-scale project.

The center will provide patients with comprehensive care:

- state-of-the-art clinical prosthetics;

- comprehensive multidisciplinary rehabilitation;

- care in accordance with the highest international standards and WHO recommendations.

At the same time, through links with Ternopil Medical University and Ternopil Technical University, practical care will be combined with education and training in accordance with WHO standards for the first time.

A two-stage education model is to be implemented in Ternopil as

- Technical training: training of specialists in practical skills for the manufacture of prostheses and orthoses at the Technical Vocational School and Technical University of Ternopil.

- Clinical training: training of specialists in clinical prosthetics & orthotics and working with patients at the Medical University of Ternopil.

Both training paths will also be taught and practiced in the new prosthetics hub, combining practice and theory in line with WHO standards (dual training).

This will make it possible to train highly qualified specialists directly in Ukraine without having to rely exclusively on foreign experts.

“With the planned competence center in Ternopil, we will combine clinically integrated prosthetics and orthotics with practice-oriented education as well as research and innovation in prosthetics and orthotics for the first time,” says Janine v. Wolfersdorff. “We will put all our energy into the new prosthetics hub and implement it in order to help the many injured people in the country.”

"Human Titans": We have opened the first municipal prosthetics center in Kyiv!

After two years of intensive preparation in Berlin and Kyiv, Life Bridge Ukraine, together with Mayor Vitali Klitschko, opened Kyiv's first municipal prosthetics center on August 26!

In the pouring rain and in the presence of numerous injured soldiers as the first patients of the prosthetics center, the opening ceremony took place in the hospital courtyard with the unveiling of the emblem of the "Human Titans" prosthetics center featuring the coats of arms of Berlin and Kyiv. "Human Titans" offers over 900 m2 of space with capacity for more than 10 employees and the potential to get thousands of amputees back on their feet with modern prosthetics in Kyiv.

The prosthetics center is also a symbol of friendship and solidarity between Berlin and Kyiv, and a symbol of hope for the many injured people in the country.

After a year of intensive training at our partner orthopedic workshops in Berlin, trainees Akim Kot and Anastasia Tkach have now returned to Kyiv to help prepare for the opening of the prosthetics center.

It looks a bit like a spaceship: no daylight, sparkling clean, and filled with brand-new machines. On behalf of Life Bridge Ukraine and our machinery supplier Streifeneder from Munich, our colleague Max Key has now tested and installed the machines at the Kyiv prosthetics center. Now it just needs to come to life: Hospital No. 12 is assembling the on-site team, and we are sourcing additional materials and fitting parts for the upcoming launch! Numerous war amputees are already on the waiting list for care.