As part of our ongoing programme to support Ukrainian veterans, we travelled to Ukraine for the second time together with representatives of the Poznań-based company Aether Biomedical. This time, in addition to revisiting clinics and hospitals in Lviv, Khmelnytskyi and Kyiv, we extended our mission further east – to medical facilities in Poltava and Kharkiv, east of the Dnieper River.
As usual, the mission team included our Foundation colleagues Marcin Mycielski and Natalia Melnychenko, as well as Dhruv Agrawal, CEO of Aether Biomedical, and Piotr Krukowski, the company’s brand ambassador and development specialist. We were also joined by volunteers: photographer and camera operator Anna Malinowska and driver Michał Lula.
During the first two days, we visited hospitals where the first patients had already received Zeus bionic hands – to check in, listen to their stories, and see how they were adapting to life with their new prostheses. The response was overwhelmingly positive, which allowed us to move forward with the next stage of cooperation with these facilities.
Our goal is to ensure that veterans across Ukraine have access to advanced prosthetics, so this time we also visited two more hospitals in Kyiv, as well as rehabilitation centres in Poltava and Kharkiv. There, we presented the remarkable capabilities of the Zeus prosthetic hand to medical staff, administrators, and patients alike. Veterans who had lost both upper limbs and their sight presented a particular challenge. But Aether came prepared: the Zeus hand can emit sounds or vibrations when changing grips, allowing even the most severely injured veterans to regain a degree of independence and return to everyday life.
While in Kyiv, something truly unexpected happened. We were honoured with a diploma from the 1st Presidential Operational Brigade “Bureviy” – presented to us by soldier Oleksandr Fedorets, who was able to return to the frontline thanks to a Zeus prosthesis. It was a moment of pride and deep emotion: we are proud to play a role, however small, in Ukraine’s fight against Russian occupiers.
You can be part of this effort too. Support our fundraiser at: https://zrzutka.pl/en/PomocUkrainie.
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