Children’s hospital medical staff takes care of the wounded children and adults 24/7 to the sounds of shellings and explosions
Ohmatdyt National Children’s Specialized Hospital is the largest medical institution of its kind in Ukraine and is located in Kyiv. It treats various types of diseases and performs very complex operations. The life of the hospital, as well as the whole country, has changed on February 24, 2022.
Igor Mirochnik, the head of the surgery department of Ohmatdyt, says on February 25, 2022, an ambulance delivered the first wounded child. That was a 7-year-old boy in a critical condition. Doctors didn’t even know who he was or where he came from. At the child’s bedside, they wrote “Unknown №1”. Later doctors found out his name — Semen. The child was unconscious and lost a lot of blood due to a shrapnel wound to the neck, a torn head wound, and contusion. “It turned out later that his whole family had died,” the doctor said. “Unfortunately, the boy died at the hospital on the fifth day.”
From the first days of the war, all hospital staff decided to live in the workplace to help the wounded children and adults 24 hours per day. Operating rooms were organized on the down floors in case of bombings. On March 16 the hospital was startled by three powerful explosions nearby — the blast damaged the windows of one of the hospital buildings, and the wreckage of the rocket was found on the balcony of the neonatal surgery department.
Doctors say it is difficult to deal with the wounded — such injuries are long and difficult to treat. The war itself also affects the psychological state of medical personnel. “It’s hard to work”, says one of the doctors, “when the hospital is buzzing and you hear explosions.” Almost every employee of a children’s hospital has recently become a psychologist.
Ohmatdyt personnel understands that the status of the hospital in this war costs little. After all, there are already many cases when the enemy has already targeted medical institutions. For example, in Mariupol, the Russians bombed the maternity hospital.
In addition to receiving the wounded, Ohmatdyt continues to provide assistance to children with other illnesses. But the biggest problem is that the children arrive in critical conditions as they didn’t have the opportunity to leave sooner due to the war.
