Recently, on Independence Day, the chief doctor Serhii Ryzhenko “for his outstanding personal contribution to state-building, to consolidation of Ukrainian society, to socio-economic, scientific, technical, cultural, and educational development of Ukraine; for his public activity, significant achievements at the workplace, and professionalism” has been decorated by president of Ukraine as a holder of the Order of Prince Yaroslav the Wise, 5th class. The Day had been repeatedly writing about the truly heroic and selfless work of the Illia Mechnikov Dnipropetrovsk Regional Clinical Hospital, which is supervised by Ryzhenko. The expertise of the doctors from Dnipropetrovsk team can be confirmed by the results of their work – they have performed several thousand operations since May last year, and almost all of them were successful.
Where does the strength for this hard and responsible work of hospital director come from? The Day has asked one of his closest people – the sister.
Ryzhenko’s mother Nadia and sister Iryna with her family live in Korsun-Shevchenkivsky in Cherkassy region, the hometown of Serhii. Iryna Lobus (nee Ryzhenko) has been working for more than 30 years as a dentist in a district hospital, and now she is the head of the dental department of the Korsun-Shevchenkivsky Central District Hospital. This is what she said.
Serhii is a very caring son. Despite his extraordinary occupation, which takes almost all of his time, he calls mother on his way to work every day. If Nadia does not pick up the phone after the first call, he asks his sister immediately: “Is mother ok?”
“He calls every day. He is a very nice, caring son,” says Iryna. “Apparently, not every son is like that... maybe that’s because our father has been gone long ago – he had not been with us already at the time Serhii went to the army...”
Turning the clock of life backwards, Iryna said that Serhii had been a very lively, even to some extent a naughty child, but he was very, very kind. Therefore, he had been loved by everyone: teachers, friends, neighbors... In his childhood, Serhii was an avid fisherman; he used to go to river Ros and to the lake – sometimes alone, sometimes with friends, sometimes even inviting the class teacher...
The life of her brother, says Iryna, is far from being called an easy one. Although, given that Serhii is an extremely purposeful man, his achievements were all logical. Just as he had been dreaming, he entered the medical school right after school. Then there was the military service – he served as far as up in Moscow.
“His talks about the time of his service in the army are so interesting,” says Iryna... “I told him that he could write a book of memoirs about it. He worked as a medical instructor, and Chechens respected him very much – at the time there were many of them serving in Moscow, and for some reason they used to get very sick – and he was helping them to recover... After the army he entered the Medical Institute. He graduated, defended two theses – a candidate’s and a doctoral... He was always accompanied by good, kind people. Well, he is just like that himself, and, also, he is very sociable... As his wife says, ‘Serhii likes to be a bit of a good wizard.’ He really likes to have someone’s dream come true. For him, that’s the most important thing...”
He has two daughters – one is a lawyer, another has decided to pass on the medical dynasty and joined the medical school this year.
In late August the mother has had a birthday. He managed to escape from his busy schedule just for few hours in order to felicitate the closest person in the world – and soon he was again back in Dnipropetrovsk... And on September 1, Serhii himself celebrates the birthday. On this occasion, The Day sincerely wishes him good health, energy, and inspiration.
