UK helping Ukraine to set up its own version of Defence Medical Rehabilitation Centre
Two years on from Russia's invasion of Ukraine and a delegation of Ukrainian healthcare officials is visiting the Defence Medical Rehabilitation Centre (DMRC) in the UK.
The facility, at Stanford Hall, near Loughborough, replaced the original rehabilitation centre at Headley Court in Surrey and is considered one of the best in the world for helping military personnel on their rehabilitation journey.
The UK has stood alongside Ukraine throughout its fight against Russia and now is helping the country build its own version of the DMRC.
Lieutenant Colonel Sardar Bahadur, the medical director of the DMRC, told Forces News the UK is trying to help Ukraine "get the most, for the most, to help the most."
"The way to do that is say, this is how we do it, this is what the evidence shows, this is what we've learned, would you like to adapt this?" he said.
"I found with our Ukrainian colleagues, they're very proud people, they know what they want, it's just guiding them in the right direction and offering help when they need it."
The first Ukrainian DMRC will be based in Kyiv and the UK is also funding the equipment required to kit the centre out.
The final list has been drawn up and is now being purchased, with care going into ensuring it's the right kit and that it can be serviced and maintained in Ukraine.
In the coming months, Ukraine's very own DMRC will begin to take shape, with the end goal of creating an entire network of recovery centres across the country.
Of course, the centres will treat both physical and mental wounds – something Professor Robert van Voren, fronting the Global Initiative on Psychiatry, told Forces News will affect civilians as well as military personnel.
"The civilians are really, you know, stressed, traumatised," he said. "There's this one woman who opened her house to the military so they could shower.
"So four soldiers come and shower, an hour later they are killed at the front. So they go completely berserk."
He went on: "The country, when it emerges from this war, will be devastated.
"We don't know exactly how many people have died, but it's really in the tens of thousands and probably over 100,000 now and still ongoing.
"It's young people. The most painful part is that [it's] the young people that should rebuild a country, men, women, they're dying at the front."
Lt Col Bahadur echoed Prof van Voren's words, telling Forces News Ukraine is a "whole nation affected by mental health".
"Most health services, national health services can deal with a proportion of the population," he said.
"But this is essentially all of the population. So when they say we treat veterans, pretty much everyone's going to be a veteran in that country at some point."
Other nations are involved in the efforts to help establish the DMRC and Norwegian psychologists are training Ukrainian soldiers to become what they call baby psychologists.
Perhaps for the first time, attempts are being made to minimise the effect of conflict on mental health at the time of war rather than years later.
Major Dr Haakon Engen, Clinical Psychologist for the Norweigan Armed Forces, told Forces News they have developed something called operational resilience training.
"We've been giving them advanced skills in basically how to build resilience for themselves and for others, psychological skills to manage stress and to help themselves and others through combat," he said.
Kseniia Smyrnova, from the National University of Kyiv, told Forces News the help is "very necessary… because life changed very dramatically".
"We can see now dramatical changes and psychological transformation of people of the whole society, and [it's especially] very important for [the] military," she said.
Join Our Newsletter
