NOTES ON PEOPLE (09/04/05)

NOTES ON PEOPLE

Vermont teen headed on relief mission

PARSIPPANY, N.J. - During a time when most high school graduates are preparing to leave for college, 17-year-old Ulana Bihun is preparing to leave for Ukraine on an international relief mission.

Ms. Bihun, of Jericho, Vt., is currently organizing a relief effort in order to provide assistance to an orphanage in Skolje, reported the Burlington Free Press.

During her junior year of high school, Ms. Bihun traveled to Lviv to attend a local high school under her father's Fulbright Scholarship. While living in the oblast capital, she became involved in the local branch of Plast Ukrainian Scouting Organization and traveled to the small orphanage as a part of a community service project headed by the youth organization.

There, Ms. Bihun discovered things that tugged at her conscience long after her return home. Upon visiting the orphanage, she noticed that the establishment's only bathroom was located outside, 200 yards away from the main house. The bathroom, as it turns out, was merely a small hole covered by several swing-up boards, and a single hanging curtain. This space was to be used by 200 children.

Ms. Bihun, who is a member of Plast in the United States, was haunted by the thoughts and memories of witnessing the everyday problems that were dealt with by poor, unkempt and, in many cases, forgotten orphans. In response, she returned home and began raising money to head an international relief effort designed to improve conditions for the orphanage in Skolje.

In June, Ms. Bihun held a jazz and folk concert in order to raise the initial funds for her Ukrainian Orphanage Project. She held a second concert in August, raising over $500 for the cause. Combined with a grant from a local rotary club she hopes to secure, Ms. Bihun plans to build an entirely new, and much more efficient, bathroom area for the kids in the orphanage.

The space will accommodate 10 new toilets, sinks and showers, and the plans for construction will be reviewed during Ms. Bihun's next trip to Ukraine this month. The construction is set to begin in April 2006, under Ms. Bihun's direct supervision.

As for her future plans, Ms. Bihun hopes to continue raising money through college and supporting the orphanage by sending any supplies and funding they may need.

Any readers who wish to donate to Ms. Bihun's cause are encouraged to contact her at (802) 899-1249, or e-mail her at [email protected].

Nurse helps people of Chornobyl area

PARSIPPANY, N.J. - Lisa Prytula, a second-generation Ukrainian American, is a registered nurse who serves all of those who are in dire medical need, especially the suffering inhabitants of the villages surrounding the Chornobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine. They are the people who have restlessly battled through countless medical difficulties since the occurrence of the nuclear catastrophe in 1986.

Ms. Prytula, 37, of West St. Paul, Minn., currently works at United Hospital in St. Paul. She originally hails from suburban Detroit, where she was raised in a rich Ukrainian environment, learning to speak Ukrainian and participating in Ukrainian youth organizations.

According to a recent article in the Pioneer Press, the fusion of her work and her heritage was forged a little over a year ago when Ms. Prytula located a South Carolina-based volunteer organization called Volunteers in Medical Missions. Along with the help of a Ukrainian Baptist minister, Alexander Kravchenko, the team has been conducting service projects in Ukraine for five years.

Ms. Prytula set out with a volunteer group of 20 doctors and nurses, who served approximately 2,000 people in need of medical care.

Her next trip is due on September 16, when she'll travel with a team of seven people to the same villages she serviced more than a year ago.

While in Ukraine, Ms. Prytula will be staying with various families in Zhytomyr (approximately three hours west of where her team will be working), and will be collecting donations of medical supplies and financial compensation for prescription drugs.

The areas surrounding Chornobyl are abundant with people in need of medical care; the zones that were directly affected by the nuclear blast have been left forgotten by many, including the government of Ukraine itself. The list of health problems of the villages' inhabitants includes, but is not limited to, depression, alcoholism, tuberculosis and cardiovascular complications.

Ms. Prytula told the Pioneer Press that the health care situation in Ukraine differs drastically from that of America's in that many doctors and nurses lack the same autonomy that their U.S counterparts enjoy. Combined with the low salaries and tremendous lack of medical supplies, the status of health care in Ukraine is poor.

However, according to Ms. Prytula, the new democratic government headed by President Viktor Yushchenko is striving to improve the conditions, revealing a brighter side to health care in Ukraine.

Ms. Prytula is still collecting donations, and specifically seeks toothbrushes, toothpaste, children's vitamins, aspirin, smoking cessation patches and stethoscopes. Anyone who appreciates the cause is welcome to offer donations.

For more information on Ms. Prytula's mission, or to offer any assistance, readers may call her directly at (651) 451-9624, or e-mail her at [email protected].

Physician develops new surgical device

PARSIPPANY, N.J. - Dr. Severin Palydowycz, of Goshen, N.Y., has developed a state-of-the-art surgical device, which hit the worldwide market last spring.

The newly created Palydowycz Cataract Lens Manipulator is a tool that allows ophthalmologists to remove damaged cataract lenses from within the human eye.

Dr. Palydowych worked alongside Bausch & Lomb Surgical to create this new device, which affords doctors the highest degree of safety and precision when operating on a damaged eye. The lens features a highly polished spherical tip, which is used to break up, divide or rotate the lens while maintaining total control of the instrument.

Dr. Palydowycz is the director of surgery at Tri-State Eye, situated in Middletown, N.Y., and Milford, Pa. He received a bachelor's degree in biology from Brown University, and earned his medical degree from the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey.

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