UUARC helps orphan get eye operation

PHILADELPHIA - An operation to remove 17-year-old Ukrainian orphan Olya Bartkiv's atrophied eye was finally successful, and a prosthetic eye is to be implanted this March. The operation required three surgical procedures, as certain complications were encountered. Performed by Drs. Ihor Bakym, Natalia Sychevska and Myroslava Handiy, the operation was a joint effort between Prizma Direct, a German company headed by Jorgan Jungnitz of Frankfurt am Main and the United Ukrainian American Relief Committee office in Lviv.

Olya, an orphan since her earliest years, has resided at the Koropetska School for Orphaned Children, and her eye has been atrophied since early childhood. It was imperative that the eye be removed and a prosthesis implanted.

Thanks to the intercession of Bohdan Kurylko, the German company Prizma Direct sponsored the operation. Now that the operations are over the UUARC's Dr. Andrij Dyda continues to coordinate the effort, driving Olya to doctors' appointments and to the fittings for the prosthesis.

Copyright © The Ukrainian Weekly, March 28, 2004, No. 13, Vol. LXXII

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