Helping disabled children left behind in the conflict
Even in peacetime, homes and rehabilitation centres for the disabled children in the Lugansk region are behind the times. Essential drugs, doctors and advanced medical treatments are scarce. Doctors from the Russian 'Road of Life’ foundation are visiting medical facilities of the Lugansk People's Republic to see children with special needs. Some of them will be taken to Moscow for treatment. These children are seen as ‘inconvenient’ and forgotten through the Donbass war.
The documentary shows how Lugansk institutions for children and adults with neuropsychiatric disorders have survived amid the fighting. A psychiatric care home in the city of Rovenki has made it thanks to the personnel. They’ve been taking care of 195 children who were born with profound mental disabilities.
Another facility, located in Krasnodon, is home for terminally ill children who will never leave the place. There’re no doctors, only qualified nurses. ‘People are shocked when they first see them. You see fear in their eyes. They ask, ‘How do you do it?’ And they just want to leave fast,’ says one of the nurses. The place is not for the faint-hearted, but nurses do everything so the children don't suffer.
With the help of the ‘Road of Life’ foundation, doctors and nurses from Lugansk seek to improve conditions for their patients. Despite the ongoing fighting, helping the ‘inconvenient' children remains their priority.