The chance of a normal life: rehabilitation through Ukraine’s medical evacuation and repatriation programme offers patients the prospect of a faster, more enduring recovery

Oksana

In their 30-year marriage, the week that Oksana and Ihor have just spent apart is the longest they have ever been separated.

On the train from Vienna to Baden, Austria, where Ihor is receiving rehabilitation for extensive injuries sustained in Ukraine, Oksana is nervous and distracted. Her phone buzzes and she scrambles to answer it. It’s her husband. Her face lights up with relief.

“He’s feeling good! I’ll see him soon,” she beams. “Everything is going to be all right.”

In March 2023, in the Zaporizhzhia Region of Ukraine, Ihor’s hips and pelvis were shattered when a Russian bomb hit the site where he was working as a driver for an electrical company. After multiple surgeries, he was evacuated to Austria through the Ukrainian Ministry of Health’s medical evacuation (medevac) and repatriation programme for hip replacement surgeries and rehabilitation.

The programme, co-funded by the European Union and run with technical and operational support from WHO, is helping to relieve some of the pressure on Ukrainian health services caused by the war. It connects Ukrainian patients with specialist trauma treatment, oncology, rehabilitation or prosthetic care in hospitals and rehabilitation centres across the WHO European Region and beyond. Its multiple partners are collaborating to ensure access to timely treatment, which has enormous impacts on patients’ quality of life, today and for years to come.

Connecting patients with specialist care

“I was impressed by the level of organization,” says Ihor of his evacuation from Ukraine to Austria via Poland. “It was very quick, straightforward. They came, collected us, brought us here right away.” On arrival in Austria, Ihor was taken straight to University Hospital Vienna, where leading specialists conducted hip replacements and repairs to his damaged pelvis.

As of 30 April, 4069 patients had been evacuated for specialist trauma treatment and oncological, rehabilitation or prosthetic care in hospitals and rehabilitation centres.

The right care at the right time

“Ihor has had several injuries. The most severe one is on his side where he lacks a lot of muscles and this is, of course, complicating all kinds of movements. That’s what we are trying to improve,” explains Dr Roland Axmann, Medical Director of the Mein Peterhof Rehabilitation Centre in Baden, 30 km south of Vienna.

“The rehabilitation that we are doing with Ihor has many parts – we're doing some active, physical therapy as well as some passive therapies, like electro therapy. Combined, these therapies should improve his movement.”

Ihor is the first patient the Centre has received under the medevac and repatriation programme.

“In the case of patients that have very complex injuries, if it's possible for them to get state-of-the-art procedures and therapies straight after the acute phase, they can often get back to probably a near-normal state,” says Dr Axmann. “Bringing the right care at the right time is crucial for rehabilitation work.”

Rehabilitation for a faster, more enduring recovery

In the Centre’s rehabilitation pool, Ihor is guided through various exercises that help restore muscle strength and balance. Water therapy is one of his favourite activities: “It makes things easier. It gives me the opportunity to move faster and easier. In the water, I’m like a fish.”

Dr Roland Axmann

Dr Axmann explains, “The best part of working in rehabilitation is to see how far you can get with a complex procedure of therapies during 3 weeks’ treatment. We are sometimes astonished ourselves by patient’s improvements in only 3 weeks. Of course, the patients have the fundamental understanding that it's something that they are doing for themselves.”

He adds, “So, it's fulfilling working here, together with the patients, trying to give them tools to make themselves better with an exercise programme they can continue to some extent at home.”

Physical independence

Just in the last 2 weeks, Ihor has begun walking with crutches, something he found unthinkable a few weeks ago. Showing his wife around the Centre, he takes the stairs instead of the lift, proudly demonstrating his progress.

When he gets going, he unconsciously carries the crutch rather than relying on it to protect his hip or help balance himself.

“The treatment in Austria is everything to us,” says Ihor. “After the injury, I said goodbye to life. After the operation and the medevac programme, I am already becoming a fully fledged person. I can walk, smile, and I think I will live on as an ordinary person.”

Ihor adds, “With the medevac programme, I see such changes: we arrived with a wheelchair, but we will leave on our own.”

Ihor and Oksana

“Family should always be together. He really needs my support – that’s why we are together,” Oksana explains. As soon as Ihor is able, Oksana wants to return home with him to Ukraine so they can be with their 2 sons.

“The worst thing was that I faced losing him,” she says. “The best thing for me now is the hope that my husband will walk and we will live a full life, that he will always be by my side. That’s why the medevac programme means so much. It means the chance of a normal life, together.”

About the programme

The medevac and repatriation programme relies on an extensive network of partners. It is co-funded by the Foreign Policy Instrument of the European Union and coordinated by the Medevac Coordination Unit of the Ministry of Health of Ukraine, with technical support from WHO

The majority of patients are referred to European Member States and European Economic Area countries through the medevac pathway financed by the European Union Civil Protection Mechanism (DG ECHO). Eligible patients are selected in Ukraine based on defined criteria, and treatment is provided via the mechanism of temporary protection or similar programmes in the receiving countries.