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Of these, approximately UAH 1 billion was paid for inpatient rehabilitation services and UAH 500 million for outpatient rehabilitation services. All services are free of charge for patients and are fully covered by the National Health Service under the Medical Guarantee Program.

The Ministry of Health continues to develop free rehabilitation care in Ukraine. As of the end of July 2023, 421 medical institutions have signed an agreement with the NHSU on rehabilitation packages.  262 medical facilities provide inpatient services and 411 provide outpatient services.

In total, the budget of the Medical Guarantees Program for 2023 includes more than UAH 4 billion for rehabilitation services. Of this amount, more than UAH 2.6 billion is allocated for inpatient rehabilitation and more than UAH 1.5 billion for outpatient rehabilitation services.

The new concept of psychological and physical rehabilitation envisages a transition from ineffective post-Soviet standards of service provision to the best international practices in accordance with WHO standards.

Although there is still a widespread belief among many people that rehabilitation after injuries is about sanatorium treatment, this is not the case. Real, evidence-based rehabilitation should restore a person’s ability to do what they could do before the injury or illness. This involves an active recovery process under the supervision and guidance of specialists. Intermediate tasks and the ultimate goal of rehabilitation are tailored to the needs of each patient. To learn how to walk, they train the gait. To learn to swallow, they train the swallowing process. To learn how to wash or brush teeth, they train the actions that a person usually performs during the relevant hygiene procedures.

Therapeutic mud, swimming pools, and electrophoresis can cost a lot of money, but they will not help restore lost motor or speech functions because they do not teach anything. Such procedures are commonly referred to as “passive rehabilitation”. Some people may convince you that this supposedly helps to restore motor function. However, these methods have no proven effectiveness or scientific basis. The heat from electrophoresis is, of course, very pleasant, but muscles that have stopped working as a result of injury or trauma cannot be restored in this way. Hydromassage and magnetic therapy are also generally considered ineffective. True evidence-based rehabilitation care involves close cooperation between a multidisciplinary team of specialists and the patient according to an individually tailored recovery plan.

The main thing to understand is that a patient will not achieve any results in rehabilitation while lying or sitting. The process of comprehensive human recovery is, first and foremost, movement. Rehabilitation is not equal to thousands of hryvnias spent on sanatorium treatment. Psychological and physical recovery is a persistent and clearly structured work of a patient with a group of specialists, and sometimes it is quite long and difficult.

At the same time, work with a person in need of rehabilitation should begin as soon as they are admitted to the hospital. Ideally, after the patient’s condition is stabilized, a physical and rehabilitation medicine doctor, a psychologist, a physical therapist, and an occupational therapist should be at the patient’s bedside.

It should be recalled that in our country, evidence-based rehabilitation care is provided by multidisciplinary rehabilitation teams of medical institutions in accordance with the Law on Rehabilitation in the Healthcare Sector. To learn how to get rehabilitation services, follow the link.