OPINION: DoctorJanette: I'm an American doctor in Ukraine treating people caught in the war and it's gut wrenching
What I provide care for and manage is gut-wrenching, and even worse, avoidable. A frail 84-year-old patient, fled his home in Kherson after it was bombed and destroyed by Russian artillery. He told me he had not eaten for four days, he was disheveled. He was suffering from chest pain, and we scrambled to find a defibrillator and an EKG machine. The EKG machine was from the 1970s. He died.
A retired U.S. Marine literally stepped in to protect me. Those Russians disappeared, along with some of our medical supplies. I was angry at first but I wondered if they were taking them to treat young naive injured Russian soldiers- we are all human and any loss of life is tragic. Another attempted suicide, even after escaping the active war zone. His self-inflicted wounds were being treated. He is not the only one.
While working in Lviv air raid alarm sirens went off. It was surreal, a million thoughts went through my head. I was at the train station caring for patients -- we had to take shelter under tunnel it was cold dark and dreary. How long would we be there? Security told us eventually these sirens will mean a real strike.
We wanted to help patients who we knew were on the train for days at a time and who would be sick or injured lacking medicine or needing wound care. A mother embraces her son who escaped the besieged city of Mariupol and arrived at the train station in Lviv, western Ukraine on Sunday, March 20, 2022. A cloud of smoke raises after an explosion in Lviv, western Ukraine, Friday, March 18, 2022.
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