To the Private Eugene Sharp words do not come easily. Sometimes her gaze is lost and she talks almost with monosyllablesin low voicefilling each sentence with as few words as possible, as if it were language economy make it easier for you to cope with your new reality. Last December she was serving in Donetskin it eastern Ukrainewhen the fragment of projectile. The outbreak he tore off his foot and his entire right leg. Since then, it heals in a public hospital from Lviv, in western Ukraine.
Eugeneoriginally from Zhytomir, shares a destiny with Igor Bolney, who, like him, has also been mutilated in the war. But Igor is originally from Dnipro and was a miner by profession until the invasion of Russia began. So he too decided to enlist and was sent to fight in the south of the country. there a land mine marked his before and after. He tells that the device exploded when he was on a mission. Igor remembers the exact moment it happened. “We were going to the occupied region of Kherson, near the Dnieper River, and it was 11 in the morning on October 31. Therefore, unfortunately I could not reach Kherson (the city was retaken by Ukrainian forces in mid-November). That’s one of my biggest regrets,” he says, adding that he will have to stay in this rehab for at least another three months.
Eugene and igor are two soldiers of the ukrainian army reflection of a phenomenon that is difficult to hide: the large number of mutilatedmostly military, which is leaving the war in Ukraine. He fire of the artillery and the thousands of mines grown in Ukrainian fields are responsible for this tragic increase in amputees across the country. Men and women – although, above all, men – whose bodies will bear the marks of war for life.
The high price of dentures
In it Saint Panteleimon public hospital of Lvivwhere Eugene and Igor are being treated, works the technician Nazar Bahnyuk, one of those in charge of the manufacturing of the prosthesis. Bahnyuk confirms that patients are increasing and many have severe amputations.
“One of the problems – says Bahnyuk – is that soldiers are given first aid quickly on the battlefield. They put tourniquets on them, but sometimes they wait up to two days to be evacuated.” In this way, the waiting time complicates the recovery and, sometimes, irreparably compromises the possibility of saving the affected limbssays the toilet.
But it is not the only difficulty. “Another issue is that most are young and strong who want and need functional and durable components, but these are expensive dentures“, says Bahnyuk, about these artifacts that can cost up to €15,000 the piece. What is not known precisely is the number of amputees in the country because the Government considers this data sensitive information. “It is secret information, perhaps because the government does not want to demotivate people,” Bahnyuk details.
Yet the great wave of amputees it is so evident that, from the hospital, they explain that, only in this center, there are 200 patients who are on waiting lists for rehabilitation, therapies and grafting of prostheses, a process that has to be preceded by a series of tests.
poor mental health
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At physical injuriesIn addition, the mental. Because there are many who, after going through this trauma, are mentally exhausted. “Their psychological health is not good after the war and the captive situations. It is hard to hear what they have been through,” says the physical therapist Ruksana Smilawho at 24 sees more than a dozen patients a day to help them adjust to their new body.
On one side of the rehabilitation center, some posters also indicate the donors who finance the needs of the amputees who come to this structure. several are European humanitarian organizations, including Germany and Malta. A good part of the treatments and prostheses are paid for by them. The reason is that Ukraine He does not have enough resources to care for all those who have left his body on the battlefield.