Ukrainian doctors save lives at children’s heart surgery centre relocated after missile attack

By Sergiy Karazy and Yurii Kovalenko

KYIV - Six months ago, doctors were performing an operation at Ukraine’s Center for Pediatric Cardiology and Cardiac Surgery when a missile struck the adjacent building inside the Kyiv compound of Ukraine’s biggest children’s hospital.

"I remember the ceiling falling down on me," recalled Vadym Tkachuk, head of the centre's intensive care unit. "But then the first thoughts are always about patients."

Today, he and his team of specialists are performing complicated operations on some of the country's tiniest and most vulnerable patients at a temporary location while the damaged hospital undergoes repairs.

For babies like Veronika, born nearly four months prematurely, Ukraine's ability to reopen the children's heart surgery centre may have meant the difference between life and death.

"If it weren't for centres and doctors like these, I think many children would have died," the baby's mother Anhelina Shevchuk, 21, told Reuters after Veronika underwent a lifesaving operation at the centre's temporary location.

The new location has only half the space and is missing some equipment specially designed for paediatric treatment, "but we keep working in those more difficult conditions without turning away any patients," said Illia Yemets, the centre's general director.

When air raid sirens go off and others across the capital move to shelter, staff at the hospital often stay at their posts to look after their seriously ill paediatric patients.

More than 1,900 medical facilities at 715 hospitals and clinics have been damaged during the war, Ukraine's health ministry said last month.

The authorities have installed 12,000 generators at medical institutions to protect them from losing power during Russian attacks that have relentlessly targeted Ukraine's energy grid.

Despite the conditions, Shevchuk said she was confident in the doctors treating baby Veronika.

"She's getting better now," she said with a faint smile. "She's gaining weight."

- REUTERS