NEWS AND VIEWS: Geneva Initiative coordinates aid to Ukrainian psychiatric hospitals (12/27/92)

NEWS AND VIEWS

Geneva Initiative coordinates aid to Ukrainian psychiatric hospitals

by Robert van Voren

GENEVA - On December 16, a 22-ton truck left for Kiev with 80 cubic meters of psychiatric literature, hospital furniture, medical supplies, detergents and other necessities for Ukrainian psychiatric hospitals and the Ukrainian Psychiatric Association. The truck is part of a project by the Amsterdam-based international association Geneva Initiative on Psychiatry, to assist in the restructuring of mental health care in Ukraine.

Earlier, two similar trucks had transported material aid to the Pavlov Psychiatric Hospital in the capital. Next year, the transports will continue, while the Dutch Minister of Defense Relus ter Beek has offered to ask his ministry to provide transportation facilities, including the use of a military cargo plane.

In April, the Geneva Initiative on Psychiatry in Amsterdam initiated its project to establish four psychiatric libraries in Ukraine. Medical libraries and publishers in the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and France were asked to send new and second-hand literature for transport to Ukraine. Subsequently, more than 5,000 medical publishers and libraries were contacted in the United States with a request to send psychiatric-medical literature. Via Freedom House in New York, almost 10 tons of literature have arrived in Amsterdam. American libraries continue to donate literature.

As a result of the success of this project, the association decided to combine the transportation of this literature with transports of medical equipment, hospital furniture and other necessities for psychiatric hospitals. In September and November, two 22-ton trucks transported a total of 160 cubic meters of aid to Kiev. In October, a similar truck delivered aid to an Institute for the Resocialization of Mentally Ill in the Romanian capital, Bucharest.

The first delivery, on September 21, was filmed by a Dutch television crew and formed the basis for a special report on Ukrainian psychiatry that was broadcast by Dutch television on September 28. As a result, more material aid poured in. Other Dutch psychiatric hospitals delivered an additional 80 cubic meters of medical equipment and hospital furniture, while Dutch firms donated large quantities of paint, detergents, paper and office equipment. This resulted in the October transport to Bucharest and, subsequently, to Kiev in November.

As the storage rooms of the Geneva Initiative were still full and a psychiatric hospital in the Netherlands had donated further quantities of hospital furniture, the association was forced to borrow money from Dutch churches and rent a fourth truck, which left for Kiev on December 16. However, due to further donations, from the Medical Department of the Dutch Army among others, the Geneva Initiative will continue its transports in 1993.

At the same time, hospitals in Western Europe have been asked to adopt psychiatric hospitals in Ukraine, while negotiations continue with service clubs regarding the financing of a reconstruction plan for the Pavlov Psychiatric Hospital in Kiev.

The main financial supporters of the aid program have been Dutch religious organizations and foundations, the European Human Rights Foundation and the First Ukrainian International Bank. This bank, founded by the Dutch Bank Mees and Hope, paid almost a third of the transportation costs.

Still, the aid program runs the risk of being discontinued due to lack of funds. The reaction from the Ukrainian community in North America has been minimal, while Europeans tend to concentrate on the war-engulfed former Yugoslavia.

Still, in spite of the continuous lack of funds, much has been accomplished in the past year. To their surprise, for the first time in decades, patients in the Pavlov Psychiatric Hospital noticed that the heating had been turned on. Under the old regime of the now dismissed Dr. Revenok, this usually happened only when it was already freezing. It might be only a small change, but it is a significant one, indicating that mental patients have become human beings and are no longer mere objects.

Robert van Voren, general secretary of the Geneva Initiative, is coordinator for Western aid to Ukrainian psychiatry of the Ukrainian Ministry of Health.

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