We receive requests for support every day from hospitals in Ukraine, but it is becoming a race against time to get help before villages and cities are militarily surrounded. We do not know how long it is before Kiev is isolated. And so our goal now is to get the right medical supplies where they are needed, in large quantities and as quickly as possible.
Meanwhile, we are witnessing destruction, aerial bombardments, heavy artillery clashes, passage of tanks, besieged cities, the beginning of an urban war, people taking refuge in bunkers and basements with no more food, water and electricity. The brutality, intensity and speed of this war is something we have not seen for a long time and that is why we are making sure that our humanitarian response is swift and large-scale.
Doctors Without Borders teams have been working in Ukraine since 1999 with HIV and tuberculosis projects and since the first day of the war we have distributed the medical kits we had, even knowing that they would not be enough. Last Saturday we brought the first three trucks with 120 m3 of emergency medical supplies to Ukraine. A third of these, mainly trauma kits and drugs, were immediately sent by train to Kiev, where they were distributed by the ministry of health to hospitals that are treating war-wounded in the capital and in those in the affected areas in the east of the country. Here the hospitals are overwhelmed by the increasing influx of injured and their supplies are running out.
More shipments will arrive in the next few days. We need insulin to treat diabetics, drugs for patients with chronic diseases such as asthma, hypertension and HIV. Some of these will need to be transported considering the additional obstacle of keeping them at constant temperatures.
Here in Lviv it is 7 degrees below zero and hundreds of thousands of people are gathered in the city or are on their way to Hungary, Poland or Slovakia. To cope with the freezing temperatures, we are shipping over 2,000 sleeping bags, more than 3,500 thermal blankets, thousands of thermal underwear sets, fleece pullovers, hats, rain jackets and other clothing, as well as more than 500 tents and kits for personal hygiene such as toothpaste, toothbrushes, soap and towels. All these materials will be handed over to local organizations who will distribute them to people who have fled to Lviv or queued at the borders of Ukraine.
Getting stocks into Ukraine where they are needed will be an ever greater challenge. The decision to approach the areas where there is a fight to carry out medical activities will be well considered, meanwhile the first MSF surgical team has arrived in Lviv.
* coordinator of Doctors Without Borders for the emergency in Ukraine