Stroke Rehabilitation

As Nita made home visits to wheelchair candidates, she saw the complete despair of the people who had experienced strokes. Few attempts were made to rehabilitate them and from the hospital they were sent home to die. In most cases, the only therapy provided was massage which did nothing to re-train healthy parts of the brain to take over for the damaged areas. As a result of this, a Stroke Rehabilitation Program was begun in October 2002.

This program, based on establishing personal relationships with the patients and their families and home visits by the medical staff, uses therapy items that are accessible and inexpensive.

Dr. Tamara Marshenko and physical therapist, Olya, work together to visit patients in their homes, doing therapy with the items pictured above. The entire family becomes involved and a journal is kept to track progress.

At present there are more than 80 patients. Since the inception of this program many people have begun walking again, with the vast majority of the patients improving dramatically. The hospitals in the Bila Tserkva Region now advise their stroke patients to contact our office for this help.

Diabetic Program

While visiting homes of the disabled, Nita found an extremely high rate of amputations, blindness, premature death and other maladies caused by diabetes and thus, this program was begun. We discovered that one of the main reasons for the lack of control of this disease is that patients are only tested once a month to see if their blood sugar levels are staying within normal range (normally diabetic patients on insulin are tested several times a day). This lack of testing resulted in the majority of diabetics taking an incorrect dose of insulin or, in some cases, nothing at all. As a result of this, our goal is to place a glucometer in the home of every diabetic and provide the necessary testing strips. As there are over 3,250 registered diabetics in the city, this is a long term goal (See “Sponsor-A-Family Program” for how you can help).

All active patients are visited, monitored and provided free in-home health care by our medical staff. Nita has met with the head endocrinologist of one of the main hospitals in Bila Tserkva to discover ways to work together to prevent premature death and amputation. As a result of these meetings, glucometers and testing strips were provided to 35 district doctors who go into homes to provide care. Armed with these glucometers, they can provide testing on the spot and identify diabetes in its early stages.

Mobile Medical Clinic

In December 2005 we made the decision to begin a new outreach to the people of Ukraine—a mobile medical clinic—where we take our medical team of Dr. Tamara and nurse Olya, plus a prayer team to the 59 villages in the Bila Tserkva District of Ukraine. We began this outreach because we had seen so many premature deaths and other medical catastrophes in these villages due to inadequate medical care. Currently two villages a month are visited.

Working with the local government, we connect with the village clinics to schedule a visit. During each visit, an evaluation is made to determine what kind of medical supplies are needed. We make every effort to supply them with the basic necessities for medical care. As in all aspects of our ministry, we are committed to developing long-term relationships with the villagers and the clinic staff.

Medical Shipments


To date, six medical shipments of more than 1 and 1/2 million dollars have been made to hospitals in Kiev, Bila Tserkva and Kherson through a joint project with Direct Relief International.

These shipments included medical supplies (needles, bandages, orthopedic and surgical instruments), and equipment such as ultrasound and EKG machines. In turn, these hospitals cooperate with us when children from the orphanages need procedures.

Surgical Aid

We arranged for five children from the Baby House Orphanage to receive cleft palate surgery by assisting with transportation to a hospital in Kiev. Galina, a girl born with leg abnormalities, was brought from a “Girls House” Orphanage (a facility for mentally retarded girls) in northern Ukraine along with a nurse, to Kherson where she received surgery on both feet. She now walks on her feet rather than her ankles.

When we met her, it was clear that she was one of the children who had been tragically misdiagnosed as being mentally retarded or “imbecile.” We were able to get a re-evaluation of her condition and, subsequently, she was diagnosed as being mentally “normal.” Due to this we were able to get her transferred to an orphanage for physically handicapped children where she receives much better care.

Shriners’ Hospital in Los Angeles has provided treatment for Dima, Andrei and Sveta – children born with birth deformities.

herry Shaffer, VP of Medical Affairs for GHT, has been instrumental in coordinating the work with Shriners’ Hospital; and even provided a home for each of these children while they were undergoing treatment.