Between October 15th and October 22nd, 2023, over 30 reconstructive surgeries on the face and neck were performed on Ukrainian war veterans as part of the Face the Future Ukraine mission, led by Canadian and American medical professionals in Ivano-Frankivsk.
In addition to the surgeries, international experts conducted symposiums on the treatment of military injuries for Ukrainian surgeons and medical personnel. The humanitarian initiative "Metinvest's Saving Lives" played a pivotal role in organizing the mission's visit to Ukraine.
A team of 15 world specialists arrived in Ukraine to perform highly complex surgeries: reconstructive surgeons, oculoplastists, plastic surgeons, otorhinolaryngologists, oncologists, anaesthetists and nurses. Ukrainian specialists from Ivano-Frankivsk, Kyiv, and Zaporizhzhia worked and trained with them.
Ukrainian doctors had been preparing for the surgeries for five months: selecting patients, developing surgery plans, and consulting with foreign colleagues.
"For many patients, bioengineers prepared individual plates that were printed on a 3D printer to restore the integrity of the bones whose fragments were destroyed during the injury," - Natalia Komashko, head of the Ukrainian Association of Endoscopic Head and Neck Surgery, says.
The patients are soldiers from different parts of Ukraine. All of them suffered severe mine-blast wounds to their faces and necks: damage to the orbit of the eyes, complex nose wounds and missing jaw fragments. Among those operated on were two employees of Metinvest mobilised to the Armed Forces of Ukraine and four soldiers from the regions where Metinvest operates - Zaporizhzhia, Dnipro and Donetsk regions.The reconstructive surgeries were free of charge for all the injured.
"This is the 53rd mission conducted by the Face the Future team in different parts of the world. It is in Ukraine that we see the most severe combined cases in all our experience, so we plan to continue to return to Ukraine every six months to help your defenders and train Ukrainian colleagues so that these operations can become available in Ukraine," - Peter Adamson, founder and president of the Face the Future foundation and professor at the University of Toronto, 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. From the beginning of the full-scale war, the project has helped almost 500,000 people in 70 territorial communities. Ukrainians have received more than 4,200 tons of foodstuffs and hygiene products, and hospitals have received medicines, consumables, and equipment worth €250,000.
Over 250 companies from around the world, 400 volunteers and 10 foundations and public organisations have joined the project. For more than a year of its activities, the amount of aid from donors has exceeded €2.7 million.
The Saving Lives' main areas of activity include prosthetics and rehabilitation for the military and civilians, as well as psychological recovery of women and children.
