Oleksandr · Veteran
"The calm came back."
Overcame post-traumatic stress disorder through a full course of comprehensive therapy.
Watch the interview →Registered Ukrainian NGO · EDRPOU 45616053
Specialized trauma care for war-affected Ukrainians.
NGO for the Development of Medicine and Psychosocial Support (MedPsy Foundation) treats the medical and psychological wounds of war, builds the evidence base for that treatment, trains the professionals who deliver it, and works on the policy that decides who can reach it. The research programme has ethics approval and runs from a randomized controlled trial through structured outcome measurement across routine care. Care is delivered in clinical partnership with Expio Clinic. For the people we treat, there is no other route to it.
A courseFour to six weeksPsychiatric assessment, clinical psychology, ketamine-assisted psychotherapy, neuromodulation, and group and family support
PartnersDelivering care and research in UkraineExpio Clinic, Ukraine's first center for ketamine-assisted psychotherapy, in Kyiv and Lviv since 2018
MedPsy Foundation Inc., the US 501(c)(3)
MedPsy Foundation Inc., the US 501(c)(3)
OversightBoard of DirectorsApproves the strategy and budget and holds oversight of management
The gap
The care exists. Almost no one can reach it.
Millions of people in Ukraine now live with post-traumatic stress disorder, severe depression and complex trauma. Specialized outpatient psychiatric care is scarce, concentrated in a handful of cities, and priced out of reach for the people who need it most.
Post-traumatic stress rarely arrives alone
In our clinical caseload, more than half of patients also present with depression. Generalised anxiety, psychosomatic conditions and moral injury are common, and untreated cases move on to substance misuse and suicidal ideation.
Moral injury is not a niche problem
Studies of combat and civilian populations put moral injury at around two thirds (Military Psychology, 2023). It responds poorly to short psychosocial support and needs structured clinical treatment.
Short support does not treat complex trauma
Most of what is funded in Ukraine is community psychosocial support or crisis response without follow-up. Valuable, but not treatment. For complex and treatment-resistant cases there is very little between that and the formal health system.
Veterans, civilians and foreign nationals carry the same wounds
They do not carry the same access. Entitlement, geography and money decide who gets a course of care, and the people with the least of all three are the ones most likely to go untreated.
The model
Why a treatment organization also does research and policy.
They are not competing priorities. They are floors of the same building. Evidence exists only because patients were treated and measured. Policy changes only because the evidence exists. And policy is what decides whether this care reaches thousands of people instead of a few hundred.
01Care every sponsored course delivered and measured
02Evidence published from one of the hardest settings in the world, and clinicians trained to use it
03Policy what treatment is legal, funded and reimbursed in Ukraine
Research
Every programme we run is also evidence.
Ukraine has legal clinical access to advanced treatments, a regulatory environment open to controlled research, and four years of clinical experience that exists nowhere else. We treat patients and we measure what happens to them, so that what works here can be published and used elsewhere. Regulatory and ethical approvals are in place for the flagship trial.
Research portfolio
Updated September 2026
Specialized trauma care
Under funder review
Ketamine-assisted psychotherapy for treatment-resistant post-traumatic stress disorder
A randomized, double-blind controlled trial in war-affected adults, comparing ketamine-assisted integrative psychotherapy with active placebo. The primary outcome is symptom severity on the Clinician-Administered PTSD Scale for DSM-5 at week four.
Specialized trauma care
Ongoing
Structured outcomes from routine ketamine-assisted psychotherapy
Standardized outcome measurement across patients treated for treatment-resistant depression and post-traumatic stress. This is the real-world evidence that sponsored courses of care generate as they are delivered.
Specialized trauma care
Under funder review
Ketamine and the felt body after limb loss
A two-stage feasibility study asking whether clinician-administered ketamine, added to usual rehabilitation, changes how people with phantom limb pain perceive the missing limb, and whether that change predicts recovery.
Status:In preparationProtocol completeUnder funder reviewOngoing
Research is coordinated by MedPsy Foundation. Clinical delivery and clinical governance sit with Expio Clinic. Every protocol is reviewed and approved by the relevant ethics committee in Ukraine before enrollment begins. Patient data is de-identified before analysis, consent is informed and withdrawable at any time, and clinical care never depends on taking part in research. Alongside the studies we train mental health professionals in trauma-focused and survivor-centered practice, which is how the workforce for this care gets built.
Strategy 2026–2029
Clinical care, research and policy engagement run as one system. Delivery generates outcomes data, outcomes data becomes published evidence, evidence earns institutional trust and a seat in policy dialogue, and that unlocks the funding and system access that expand delivery. Five pillars, three phases, and what we expect to have changed by 2029.
Patient stories
People who finished treatment, in their own words.
Filmed at Expio Clinic and published with consent. The interviews are in Ukrainian.
Roman · Veteran
"Before and after."
Ketamine-assisted psychotherapy for post-traumatic stress disorder and depression, told either side of treatment.
Watch the interview →Oleksandr · Veteran
"Integrative therapy, start to finish."
What a full integrative course of treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder actually involves, from the patient's side.
Watch the interview →Patients consented to these interviews being published. No one is identified in anything a donor or funder receives; sponsors see reference numbers only.
Who we are
A Ukrainian NGO and its clinical partner.
Two organizations with distinct roles. MedPsy Foundation runs the programmes, coordinates the research, and holds the donor relationship. Expio Clinic holds clinical governance and treats the patients.
Ukraine · Care, research and policy
MedPsy Foundation
NGO for the Development of Medicine and Psychosocial Support
Registered in Kyiv, May 2024 · EDRPOU 45616053
- Delivers integrated psychiatric and psychotherapy care, and funds it for people who cannot pay
- Coordinates clinical research and trains mental health professionals
- Builds referral pathways between community services and specialist care
- Engages the policy and regulatory processes that decide what treatment is available
- Holds programme governance, donor accountability and reconciliation
Ukraine · Clinical governance
Expio Clinic
Ukraine's first center for ketamine-assisted psychotherapy
Operating since 2018 in Kyiv and Lviv · expio.clinic
- Over 1,000 ketamine-assisted psychotherapy sessions delivered
- Psychiatric assessment and tier assignment at intake
- Clinical governance, supervision and per-patient invoicing
- Trauma-focused cognitive behavioural therapy, eye movement desensitization and reprocessing, and medication management
MedPsy Foundation was founded by clinicians and humanitarian health professionals to close the gap between community mental health support and the formal health system. We work with international organizations, government partners, academic institutions and other non-governmental organizations on service delivery, clinical training and supervision, research collaboration, technical support and funding partnerships.
Leadership
The team running the organization day to day. Governance sits with the Board of Directors.
Lisa Woods
Executive Director
Co-founder. Deputy Health Cluster Coordinator for Ukraine at the World Health Organization from 2022 to 2025, after more than a decade in humanitarian health.
Dr. Vladislav Matrenitsky
Clinical Advisor
Co-founder. Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Expio Clinic, Ukraine's first center for ketamine-assisted psychotherapy. Physician, PhD, author of the first Ukrainian manual in psycho-oncology.
Dr. Vladyslav Sinyahovsky
Medical Coordinator
Clinical leadership across the programme: supervision of clinical staff and responsibility for safe, ethical, evidence-based care.
Natalia Karpova
Operations Coordinator
Operations, procurement and logistics, and the administration behind every sponsored course of care.
Documents
Available to sponsors, funders and partners.
Patient Sponsorship ProgrammeOn request Strategy 2026–2029Page Annual Report 2024–2025PDF Board of DirectorsPage Due DiligencePageSponsor a patient
A full course of treatment, at cost.
An Expio psychiatrist assesses every sponsored patient at intake and places them in one of two tiers by clinical need. These are complete costs, including the twenty-five percent for administration and overhead.
Amounts in
Cohort sponsorship
Fund a group of patients through treatment together.
Ten patients, twenty-five, or a full programme year. Cohort sponsors sign an agreement before the first transfer and receive quarterly reporting and aggregate outcomes at the end. Most of our funding comes this way.
$21,65010 patients
$54,12525 patients
By agreementa programme year
Or sponsor one person
Tier 1 · About four weeks
Standard course
$2,165
₴95,250
For moderate post-traumatic stress disorder. Psychiatric care, clinical psychology, ketamine-assisted psychotherapy and neuromodulation, from intake to discharge.
Tier 2 · About six weeks
Maximum course
$2,998
₴131,875
For severe and complex cases with profound moral injury. Everything in Tier 1, extended, with advanced medical support and a dedicated family psychologist.
Cannot fund a whole course? Any amount is pooled into the next one.
Give any amountGiving monthly, by bank transfer, or as a cohort sponsor? Write to us. Giving from the United States? Give at medpsyusa.org and your gift is tax-deductible.
Get help
If you or someone you know needs this care, start here.
Sponsored places are free at the point of care. There is no cost to the patient and no obligation to take part in research.
Who can be referred
War-affected civilians and veterans with signs of post-traumatic stress disorder or other complex trauma who have no means to access appropriate care.
Who can refer
Health providers, partner organizations, or people themselves. You do not need a referral letter to make contact.
What happens next
We read every referral and reply. If it looks like a fit, an Expio psychiatrist carries out the intake assessment that decides the level of care.
Language
Ukrainian or English, in writing or by phone.
Get help
Prefer not to use a form? Write to director@medpsy.org.ua or call +38 098 688 2 888.
Contact
Sponsors, partners and referrals.
We reply to every message.