Surviving the war is just the beginning

Air raid sirens interrupting online meetings, swarms of drones over city streets, and a healthcare system where every minute can be crucial. During a powerful and personal JU LIVE lecture, Nerrolyn Ramstrand, Professor of Orthopaedic Technology at the School of Health and Welfare at Jönköping University, took the audience into the everyday lives of her Ukrainian colleagues and the work of building a sustainable rehabilitation and prosthetic care system in the midst of an ongoing war.

When JU LIVE was held on 26 March in the University Library, around fifty attendees were treated to a deeply moving lecture. For Nerrolyn, it was important to make the subject personal. She began by showing pictures of her colleagues in Ukraine and talking about their daily lives.

“Our meetings can suddenly be interrupted by a bomb alert on our mobiles. Then my colleagues have to quickly decide whether to head down to a bunker or stay put and carry on working,” she explained.

Thousands of new amputations

Exact figures are difficult to determine, but according to Nerrolyn, there have been around 20,000 new amputees in Ukraine since 2022. Many have been injured by drones and also suffer from extensive burns. Before the war, Ukraine had no training programmes for Prosthetics and Orthotics whatsoever. Ukraine’s Minister of Health contacted Nerrolyn due to JU’s expertise in the field, and a collaboration began in which she helped develop criteria and a structure for training programmes in the country. Today, there are four training programmes and 36 newly qualified, registered certified Prostheticst and Orthoticst.

Major challenges – but also mutual learning

During the lecture, Nerrolyn also demonstrated various prostheses and spoke about the high costs involved. Combined with the shortage of trained staff, this has opened the door to unscrupulous operators who exploit the situation.

The biggest challenge, however, is the supply of skilled personnel. That is why they are not only working on training Prostheticst and Orthoticst, but also on teamwork with professional psychologists, occupational therapists and physiotherapists. The collaboration continues, and in the future Ukrainian colleagues will come to Sweden to observe the work at clinics and at the School of Health and Welfare.

The audience was moved

Among those in the audience was Stig Pettersson, a Prosthetistc/Orthotist with 50 years of experience.

“It was a very interesting talk. I have worked internationally myself, including in Africa, and I can relate to certain parts of her story,” he said.

He was sitting alongside Maria Hemgren and Åsa Zetterling, who have both worked in the rehabilitation of amputees, and agreed that the speaker was both knowledgeable and deeply moving.