A focus group was organized to discuss medical care for the military.

Thank you to everyone who participated in the focus group organized by the Charitable Foundation "Center for Medical Innovations," dedicated to the issues of military personnel, which took place on January 9 as part of the NOVO Medical Center's program to provide medical diagnostic services to combat veterans and war veterans. The discussion was attended by Taras Lysak, Director of the Charitable Foundation "Center for Medical Innovations," and experts in the fields of medicine and support for socially vulnerable groups of society. This is already the 5th expert meeting focused on finding solutions. It should be noted that the main component is the provision of high-tech diagnostic services to military personnel and veterans, with 1,096 diagnostic examinations (services) conducted for 691 individuals to date.

It is very positive that the issues of veterans are addressed by as many as 6 different ministries, but in practice, this leads not to synergy and increased efficiency of the projects and programs being implemented, but rather to the shifting of responsibility for the multitude of existing problems. Such dialogues and discussions are extremely important as they allow for open and frank discussion of "uncomfortable questions" and the sharing of small successes in their resolution on a local level.

A veteran or military personnel is a whole personality that cannot be broken down into components of a service recipient and treated solely in that context.

Thus, we had the opportunity to hear the perspective of Oksana Sivak, Deputy Minister for Veterans Affairs on European integration issues, Roman Andres, Director of the Department of Social Protection of the Lviv Regional Administration, and to learn about the problems and successful practices implemented by Taras Lysak, Director of NOVO Medical Center, and Stanislav Onishchuk, Director of the First Volunteer Surgical Hospital "Brass" (Ivano-Frankivsk).

Thank you to everyone who joined the discussion, especially Martha Pyvovarenko for expert comments and insightful questions, and the administration of Ivan Franko National University of Lviv, represented by Rector Prof. Volodymyr Melnyk and Vice-Rector for Academic and Social Affairs and Development Volodymyr Kachmar, for their collaboration and support of such initiatives.

Thank you to Center for Social Development and Public Initiatives of Ivan Franko National University for their support and collaboration, and personally to Yaryna Tanchak for expert collaboration and participation in the discussion.

The focus group was organized within the framework of the project “Provision of High-Tech Innovative Medical Services to Socially Vulnerable Groups in Lviv Oblast,” implemented by the Charitable Foundation "Center for Medical Innovations" under the "Support for Civil Society Organizations in Ukraine" Program, funded by the UK Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office and executed by Crown Agents in partnership with International Alert and in collaboration with Crown Agents in Ukraine.