This article was published in the EURO-CIU newsletter in June 2020
Regardless of the exceptionally challenging circumstances, caused by the Coronapandemic, which also affected CI recipients and candidates all over the world, wecould help Lize in the Ukraine to get her CI within a rather short time.We “met” Liza ́s mother Jana 5 months ago “Online“ and she convinced us about theurgency to support her daughter to get access to better hearing: Liza does not onlysuffer from bilateral severe hearing loss, she is also nearly blind.We collected all the necessary documents (medical / audiological / CT, MRT and adescription of the financial situation of the family as well as the social environment),translated and submitted them to potential sponsors in Germany.
One of them reactedwithin 6 weeks and we received a generous donation. The family had raised funds inthe meantime as well and we approached the company Otcion Medical to provide theCI system at a price we could afford.We were asked to contact their distributor in the Ukraine, company Avrora in Kiev andvery soon we had two constructive Online conversations with the founder of Avrora,Yuri Sokolov, who lives in Canada now, and Oleksandr Radchenko, the director ofAvrora in Kiev.An agreement was reached and on May 21 Jana and her daughters met withOleksandr Radchenko, Tatjana Bogdanovic and Yaroslav Taranovskij to receive theirCI for Liza.The other great news is that Prof. Borys Mironjuk, one of the very experienced surgeons in the Ukraine, has already performed the surgery on May 26. As Liza wasborn on 25 May 2017, it was a nice birthday present for her – delayed only by a day!Sessions for the first fitting with Denis Litun and (re)habilitation with Svitlana Zayjka arescheduled.We hope you agree with us, that this is a wonderful example of what can be achievedunder very difficult circumstances provided all parties involved really want it.
Dr. Dr. h.c. Monika Lehnhardt-GorianyLehnhardt Stiftung