About the organization

THE REGIONAL PUBLIC ORGANISATION OF INVALID OSTOMY PATIENTS "ASTOM" was registered in the Moscow City Justice Department on  March 23, 1993. The organisation was founded by the initiative ostomy patients during the hardest times in our country - in the reckless 90s' with the complete outrage, human rights collapse, the collapse of justice, widespread illegal privatisation, the lack of money in the country and, naturally, of finance assignments for the social support of invalids and other  socially vulnerable sections of society. The question of supplying ostomy patients with the vital stoma care facilities as the basic requirement for the medical-social rehabilitation of such people and for their integration into the society was on the agenda of neither the Federal Government and public health and social development leaders nor regional leaders and health and social protection authorities. Furthermore, the vital ostomates rehabilitation equipment was difficult to obtain in the commercial marketing.

 

  However, the growing activity of socially responsible people in the early 1990's, the beginnings of public initiatives on the ruins of the Soviet Empire, the unity based on the faith in progressive democratic advancement of our society led to the rapid development of the public sector. One of those beginnings was our public organisation of ostomy patients "ASTOM", which by its social activity in the frameworks of social cooperation with the public sector - legislative and executive authorities, representatives of medicine and social protection, as well as with the private sector - manufacturing companies specialised in modern stoma care facilities - proved itself as an integral part of developing the process of ostomates rehabilitation in Russia. At present ROOISB "ASTOM" is the basic organization in the Coordination Council of public regional organizations of stoma patients in Russia.