By Pilar Martin | Philantropy manager
“I finally feel free,” says Grigory Fomenko, 69, after the long journey he undertook because of the serious illness that left him stranded unable to walk eight years ago and who now has a wheelchair that allows him to get around.
Grigory lived in the village of Kovsharivka, near Kupyansk in the Kharkiv region. When his legs failed, neighbors helped the lonely man survive. Some volunteered to go shopping at the store, others prepared food for him. And then the war began. Grigory Fomenko reluctantly recalls the events of 2022. He recalls how the music school was bombed near his home, but the windows of the apartment miraculously remained unharmed. All the neighbors suddenly moved out. The man remained the sole inhabitant of the five-story apartment building. Sometimes, clinging to the railing, he would go down to the courtyard to ask passersby to buy him food.
After some time, he was finally admitted to a hospital and transferred to a nursing home in Kharkiv, where he has been living for a few months now and where he has a wheelchair that has changed his life. Médicos del Mundo, with the financial support of the Ukrainian Humanitarian Foundation (UHF), donated six wheelchairs for people with disabilities to the nursing home. Grigory was one of the recipients. For the first time in eight years, he had the opportunity to move around.
"Now I am in a very good mood. Every day I go outside.I can breathe fresh air, enjoy nature," he explains.
The donation of assistive devices is part of Médicos del Mundo emergency response in Ukraine to improve living conditions and access to health, emergency and care services for vulnerable groups, mainly people with disabilities, the elderly and people with reduced mobility.
Specifically, since the start of this project last spring until today, Médicos del Mundo has donated hearing aids, folding walkers, canes and crutches, biological toilets, orthopedic mattresses and wheelchairs. Specifically, 221 wheelchairs have been delivered to boarding schools, social welfare institutions, individuals and health centers in the Kharkiv and Zaporizhzhia regions.
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