News

The Saving Lives humanitarian initiative of Metinvest Group and Protez Hub have launched the first online educational platform in Ukraine Knowledge Base: Protez Hub for specialists in the field of limb prosthetics of injured people. Metinvest allocated over UAH 2.5 million to create the resource.

The portal is fully Ukrainian-language, and access to all materials is free. The online platform will help to understand the sequence of stages of rehabilitation and prosthetics of injured people from the moment of injury to returning home with a prosthesis; to understand the process of choosing the prosthesis; and to better define the role of different specialists in the rehabilitation of a person who has lost a limb. The resource will be useful for prosthetics professionals, injured people, as well as their families and friends.

"Prosthetics and rehabilitation of people who lost their limbs as a result of the war is one of the major areas of work of the Saving Lives initiative. Forty-two servicemen and civilians are currently undertaken the joint programme with Protez Hub, and 10 of them have already received prostheses. Creation of the educational platform is an important part of returning the injured to a full-quality life. This knowledge base will allow us to go through all the stages of prosthetics and rehabilitation step by step, to understand the needs of people with amputations and to improve the quality of medical services. We are also developing other programmes that will help veterans to integrate into society after returning from the war," Yuriy Ryzhenkov, CEO of Metinvest Group, said.

The training of medical staff is aimed at providing better services for limb prosthetics and related rehabilitation. The platform includes 5 courses: rehabilitation, for specialists in prosthetics and patient care. The courses consist of 34 video lectures by 16 Ukrainian and foreign practitioners, experts and scientists. The lectures are accompanied by materials that users can print out and use on a daily basis. Upon completion of the training, participants will receive certificates of a form approved by the Ministry of Health of Ukraine.

"The Protez Hub team has been helping to develop the limb prosthetics industry in Ukraine since 2015. We organise practical sharing, seminars and webinars, and cooperate with foreign and Ukrainian specialists, organisations and the government. The creation of the Knowledge Base: Protez Hub platform was a logical and timely decision, and I am sincerely proud that we have implemented it. I am grateful to our partners, Saving Lives of Metinvest Group, for understanding the importance of developing and maintaining such a resource and supporting this idea. Qualified Ukrainian experts delivered the lectures, a talented film crew of Ruslan Batytskyi and Anna Borysova recorded and edited them, and wonderful Ukrainian developers from Rolique.io combined everything into one accessible resource with user-friendly design by Tabasco Agency. We invite everyone to spread the word about this platform and learn," Antonina Kumka, President of Protez Hub, said.

The Saving Lives initiative was created by Metinvest Group in coordination with Rinat Akhmetov Foundation at the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. During the year of the full-scale war, almost 500,000 people have received a total of 8.4 million euros in assistance through the project. Ukrainians have received more than 4,000 tons of foodstuffs and hygiene products, and hospitals medicines, consumables, and equipment worth more than 246,000 euros. More than 200 companies from around the world have joined the project as donors. The initiative is supported by 400 volunteers and 10 foundations and non-governmental organisations. The main areas of Saving Lives activity include prosthetics and rehabilitation of military and civilians, as well as psychological recovery of women and children.

Since 2015, Protez Hub has been working to improve the skills of prosthetics specialists and the culture of prosthetics in Ukraine. Since then, the project has trained 400 prosthetics specialists and helped more than 100 patients.