Physical and mental recovery of patients should take place in comfortable barrier-free spaces - Viktor Liashko

Minister of Health Viktor Liashko and First Lady Olena Zelenska visited the Ternopil Regional Clinical Psychoneurological Hospital, which provides comprehensive rehabilitation care to Ukrainian military and civilians.

“In January, the neurorehabilitation department of the Ternopil Regional Clinical Psychoneurological Hospital became one of the six so-called centers of excellence. This means that the best practices in the field of rehabilitation are already being applied here: modern evidence-based rehabilitation methods, a multidisciplinary approach, patient-centeredness, barrier-free access, and close attention to patients’ needs and comfort. Qualified specialists of multidisciplinary rehabilitation teams form an individual rehabilitation plan for each patient, which allows for maximum restoration of lost body functions and returning a person to a socially active life. This is an example of what a rehabilitation unit should be like. This experience should be scaled up, and we are working on it,” noted Viktor Liashko.

Outpatient and inpatient rehabilitation is free of charge for patients, as the institution has appropriate contracts with the NHSU, meaning that medical services are paid for by the state. Comprehensive rehabilitation is carried out by four multidisciplinary teams, which include a doctor of physical and rehabilitation medicine, a physical therapist, an occupational therapist, a neurologist, a speech therapist, a psychologist, and a social worker.

25 rehabilitation specialists from the medical institution were trained at medical centers in France, Poland, Norway, and Germany. The minister emphasized that this is a practical implementation of the international medical partnership program, which allows for continuous improvement of the quality of medical services by establishing direct links between specialists from Ukrainian and foreign medical institutions. 

The International Medical Partnership Program was launched last year during the Third First Ladies and Gentlemen Summit in Kyiv under the patronage of First Lady Olena Zelenska. It was then that the Ternopil Regional Clinical Psychoneurological Hospital received its counterparts from France and North Macedonia. Relevant memorandums were signed with the Group of Psychiatric and Neurological Hospitals of Paris and the University Clinic of Psychiatry in Skopje.

Barrier-free accessibility is an important element of rehabilitation spaces. The Ternopil Regional Clinical Psychoneurological Hospital provides comfortable conditions for patients and a barrier-free space for people with disabilities. Facilities created for people’s rehabilitation should be adapted to their needs. Recently, as part of the National Strategy for Creating Barrier-Free Space in Ukraine, the Big City Lab team, with financial and technical support from the World Bank, developed a guide to barrier-free rehabilitation units to help hospital managers and owners remove existing barriers and create the right conditions for patients’ rehabilitation.

The Ministry of Health has also approved guidelines for implementing barrier-free principles in the provision of medical and rehabilitation services in healthcare facilities. They contain a list of measures to equip barrier-free spaces, taking into account the needs of people with speech, hearing, communication, vision, movement, families with children, the elderly, etc. This is an auxiliary tool for managers of medical institutions to assess the real state of implementation of the barrier-free principles and create decent conditions for the provision of quality medical care.

Last year, a Mental Health Center was launched as part of the Ternopil medical facility. The center provides free outpatient and inpatient psychological assistance to residents of the city and oblast, internally displaced persons, and the military, as well as psychological support for healthcare professionals to prevent professional burnout. The center offers consultations with qualified psychologists, speech therapists, psychiatrists, and psychotherapists in various fields. The center’s psychiatrists diagnose, medicate and determine further rehabilitation tactics for people suffering from various mental disorders.

The development of a network of mental health centers in cluster and supercluster hospitals across the country is the next step of the Ministry of Health in implementing the All-Ukrainian Mental Health Program initiated by Olena Zelenska. Thus, the Ministry of Health continues to form an ecosystem of quality and accessible psychological care. Last year, the focus was on the availability of basic psychological services at the primary level of medical care, i.e., at the family doctor’s office. This year, we are intensifying the development of outpatient mental health services.