Project Results: Strengthening the Capacity of the Kharkiv Regional Clinical Hospital

The UA Brokers Without Borders team has completed a project aimed at strengthening the capacity of the Kharkiv Regional Clinical Hospital — the region’s key medical facility — to provide care for victims of mine-blast injuries.

The project focused on the hospital’s critical departments that treat blast-related injuries: the surgical department and the head and neck department, which specializes in managing the consequences of acoustic trauma.

Context The risk of sustaining mine-blast injuries (MBIs) in Kharkiv Oblast is among the highest in Ukraine. The region lies along the frontline, with most settlements under constant shelling, and approximately 40% of its territory is contaminated with explosive hazards. Due to the complexity of treating MBI, patients who suffer such injuries, nearly 5,500 people in 2023-2024, are referred to the region’s main medical facility, the Kharkiv Regional Clinical Hospital.

“When patients with mine-blast injuries are brought to us, the damage often involves multiple organs simultaneously. Our doctors need to quickly assess the patient’s condition, determine rescue priorities, and avoid harming healthy organs. This is especially crucial during mass shelling. On one occasion, over 40 victims were brought to the hospital within just one hour. Surgeons immediately began operating in all theaters, performing complex interventions under extreme pressure,” shared Ruslan Vragov, General Director of the hospital.

However, even this key hospital faces a shortage of modern equipment for its primary departments involved in treating MBI, the surgical and otolaryngology departments. This negatively impacts the duration of surgeries, increases their invasiveness, and subsequently raises risks for patients.

Project Goal

• To reduce the time and improve the efficiency of fragment retrieval during surgical interventions for MBIs.

• To enhance the level of diagnostics and the effectiveness of surgeries for auditory organ injuries caused by MBIs.

What Has Been Done

The project involved the delivery of specialized equipment and training for medical staff:

X-ray transparent surgical table:

• Enabled the hospital to use existing X-ray equipment (C-arms) for fragment contrast imaging;

• Accelerated the detection of fragments;

• Reduced the invasiveness and duration of surgeries, thereby minimizing risks to patients' lives.

Microscope for ENT surgeries: 

• Enhanced the diagnosis and treatment of auditory organ injuries;

• Provided greater surgical precision and enabled complex hearing restoration procedures.

Otiatric drill:

• Improved the quality of surgical interventions for acoustic injuries by ensuring precision and minimally invasive procedures. 

  
  
  

  

  
  
  

Training for Doctors: 

• Training for the otolaryngology department enhanced the medical staff’s qualifications in diagnosing and treating complex hearing organ injuries.

• Training for the surgical department improved expertise in MBIs surgery, including fragment removal techniques and the organization of medical care during mass casualty incidents.

• Ultrasound training equipped specialists with the skills for rapid diagnostics in cases of mass admissions of MBI patients.

“The use of extremely powerful shells has become the main factor causing acoustic injuries (damage to the auditory and vestibular systems), making them the most common injuries,” said otolaryngologist Mykhailo Kalashnyk. “We first stabilize the victims and eliminate life-threatening conditions, then proceed to restore hearing, as even partial hearing loss significantly impacts the quality of life.”

Results

• Three units of critical equipment have been provided

• More than 70 specialists from Kharkiv Regional Clinical Hospital and 91 specialists from regional hospitals in Sumy, Zaporizhzhia, Odesa, Kherson, Mykolaiv, Chernihiv, Ivano-Frankivsk, and other regions have completed the training in both online and offline formats.

• During the implementation of the project alone, 180 patients with MBI were treated using the provided equipment.

“The Institute of Otolaryngology named after Prof. A.I. Kolomiychenko of the National Academy of Medical Sciences of Ukraine has been conducting advanced training courses for otolaryngologists since 1999, and over 600 doctors have attended them since then. However, the two-day training organized by the ‘UA Without Borders’ was the first since the start of the full-scale war,” said Oleg Borysenko, Head of the Department of Ear Microsurgery and Otoneurosurgery, Doctor and Professor of Medical Sciences.

Donors

The project was implemented with the support of UNDP within the “Transformational Recovery for Human Security in Ukraine” project and financial support from the Government of Japan.