Kyiv burn center gets unique surgical equipment
The burn center at Kyiv City Clinical Hospital No. 2 was the first in Ukraine to receive a device for hydrocleaning wounds, which will make it possible to treat burn-damaged skin faster and more effectively.
A hydrosurgery console is a device that allows for gentle removal of dead tissue in wounds and burns using a “blade” formed from pressurized water. This method is gentler for patients with severe burn injuries, helps to better clean the damaged skin and properly prepare it for further surgical manipulations.
“The device is convenient to operate, it allows better to perform such interventions in particularly severe patients, in wounded people, in such areas that have contoured, i.e., uneven wounds. After such treatment, these wounds are suitable for closing with various methods of skin plastic surgery,” said surgeon Oleksandr Zhernov, professor at the Department of Combustiology and Plastic Surgery at Shupyk National Healthcare University of Ukraine.
He first learned about the device for hydrosurgical wound cleaning 20 years ago when they appeared in the United States. However, he has never used it in practice since such devices have never been used anywhere in Ukraine.
The burn center at Kyiv City Clinical Hospital No. 2 became the first healthcare facility in Ukraine to receive this unique device. Ukraine’s SpunBond Charity Foundation in partnership with one of the large international companies purchased it together with other equipment necessary for the work of local surgeons.
The benefactors have renovated the small surgery room and equipped it with modern devices and tools: now it has a new surgery table and operating lamp, an anesthesia breathing system, a hospital transport bed, an infusion pump, and a dermatome, which is a device for transplanting skin to patients with severe burns, explained specialist Olena Svyrydiuk, head of the rehabilitation department of Kyiv City Clinical Hospital No. 2.
“Victims of burns caused by flames, scalding with boiling water, as well as chemical burns, mine-explosive and shrapnel injuries are undergoing treatment in our healthcare facility. For example, we receive children who are seriously injured as a result of carelessly playing on high voltage wires. In addition, we operate on soft tissue defects. Now, during the full-scale war, there are many people with such injuries and many of them need long-term treatment. If it weren’t for volunteer donations, we would be missing a lot,” said Svyrydiuk.
In general, the SpunBond Charity Foundation is currently focusing on four areas within such partnership. In addition to the assistance of Kyiv City Clinical Hospital No. 2, it’s also palliative care for children from Kyiv City Children’s Clinical Hospital No. 1, such as baby linens, diapers, cannula catheters and oxygen masks, the purchase of laundry equipment for Kherson City Clinical Hospital, as well as providing healthcare facilities in various regions of Ukraine with VAC [vacuum-assisted closure] devices for vacuum wound therapy.
“We focused on these four projects for several reasons. First, this is help based on the principle of ‘here and now.’ After all, these projects are implemented quite quickly and bring real results, i.e., they help doctors and the population. Secondly, we chose them from really ‘hot’ requests that our fund received in recent months,” said Natalia Fiala, co-founder of the SpunBond Charity Foundation.
As a result of the war, today Ukraine is one of the most mined countries in the world. Due to mined green zones, mine clearance of private territories, unexploded shells in fields, forests and cities, many people, including the civilian population, receive mine-blast traumas, as well as suffering due to daily enemy shelling in various regions of Ukraine. Such patients need cutting-edge treatment solutions, the SpunBond Charity Foundation added.
The project to help Kherson City Clinical Hospital is a reaction to the consequences of the explosion of the Kakhovka Hydroelectric Power Plant in June 2023, the benefactors explained. In particular, the number of patients with infectious diseases has increased after this disaster, which requires a frequent change of bed linen in healthcare facilities where they undergo treatment.
“For health workers, just like for the military, the needs will never be exhaustive. Because it’s about human life. And even one medical consumable, medicine, tourniquet, or medical gadget missing from a doctor’s bag means the loss of a human life. That’s why it’s important to provide with everything, always provide, because ‘enough’ is not about the medical field during wartime,” said Fiala.
“We understand very well that the possibilities of ordinary citizens aren’t unlimited. The economic downturn is taking its toll. Many people have already given almost everything they had to help volunteers. Therefore, it’s important for charitable foundations that take care of doctors to look for alternative ways of attracting funds.”
First of all, these are Ukrainian and international companies, Fiala added. Social responsibility is a basic condition for any business today, she said.
“And we’re very pleased that they [companies] include those who not only respond to specific requests, but also initiate large-scale charitable projects on their own.”
The military war may be swinging in our favor, but the information war continues.
Just as an army needs soldiers, so does a free society need its journalists to ensure that people have access to honest, trustworthy voices to understand the world around them.
For the past five years, The New Voice of Ukraine has been working tirelessly to push back against Russian narratives and defend democracy. But we cannot do it alone.
Please consider supporting us on Patreon for just $5 a month – your donation does directly to supporting journalists and ensuring that this front of the infowar says solid and defended.
Thank you.
Follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Google News
