Despite having fled the war that erupted in her country on 24 February 2022, Ukrainian psychologist Viktoriia Gorbunova continues to support the mental health of compatriots still living in Ukraine.
Viktoriia is a psychologist and psychotherapist who lived in Zhytomyr, central Ukraine, up until about 2 months after the fighting began.
“As our house is near a military airport, we could see and hear the explosions as the Russians attacked. It was terrifying, and we realized we had to leave,” she says.
“We thought the war would perhaps last a couple of weeks. We planned to help drive refugees to the border from the Carpathian mountains, where we had gone. But the tiny hotel room we rented was way too expensive, so we had to leave.”
After a month in Hamburg, Germany, she ended up in Luxembourg, almost 2000 km from her hometown, where Viktoriia now works online to provide critical help to fellow Ukrainian citizens.
“We feel settled in Luxembourg now, but the first few months outside Ukraine were hard,” she says.
She is still involved in several projects in Ukraine. She helped develop a universal mental health curriculum for frontline health professionals back in her homeland.
This curriculum, which is currently being rolled out across the country, aims to better prepare frontline health-care workers for tending to people with mental health conditions, specifically by making them more aware of how to support patients according to their needs. The course covers 18 mental health conditions (including post-traumatic stress disorder and depression) and common mental health crises, such as suicide or self-harm.
Viktoriia is also the team leader of a project called the Mental Health Sensitivity School Concept, which is developing a framework for schools to help care for the mental health of pupils and staff.
“We planned the project before the war, but have made many war-related adjustments. Our aim is to make Ukrainian schools more sensitive to mental health issues and to supply school psychologists and staff with evidence-based training materials.”
Ukraine has continued to develop its mental health system despite the invasion, building on a series of reforms taking place from 2015 onwards, supported by WHO and other humanitarian agencies. As part of these reforms, more than 650 primary health care providers have been trained since 2019 with the WHO Mental Health Gap Action Programme, which has helped prepare them to care for common mental health conditions like depression. Currently, more than 10 million people in Ukraine are in need of mental health assistance, and that number could rise further, the longer the war continues.
For Viktoriia, it means a great deal to be able to use her education and experience to help Ukrainians who have chosen – or are forced – to remain in the country.
She misses her family and friends in Ukraine desperately, she says, but feels fortunate to be able to keep working in her profession for the country and people that mean the world to her.
“I’m lucky to be safe and have a job, but I cannot imagine what I would do without social media, letting me stay in contact with my loved ones.”
Late last year, the Ministry of Health of Ukraine – with the support of the WHO Country Office in Ukraine, WHO/Europe and other partners – laid out a roadmap of what needs to be done to ensure that mental health services can meet Ukrainians’ needs both now and in the future, looking to a day when the conflict has ended.
Such needs include preparing communities and families to support people with mental health conditions and other vulnerable groups as the country rebuilds.