Saturday, November 30

The children's hospital in Kiev, Ukraine, struggling to survive

In the basement of the main pediatric hospital in the Ukrainian capital, Kiev, mothers and fathers comfort their children as best they can, doing their best to hide their feelings of horror and disbelief from their children.

For these families, fleeing the city is not an option.

“These are patients who cannot receive medical treatment in the home, they cannot survive without medicines, without medical treatment and medical workers“, the chief surgeon of the hospital, Volodymyr Zhovnir, told the press.

The hospital, called Okhmatdyt, is the largest of its kind in the country and specializes in treating children with cancer.

Normally has up to 549 patients, but that number is now around 200, reported the Reuters agency.

The World Organization for Health said on Sunday that Ukrainian hospitals aren running out of oxygen.

“The oxygen supply situation is approaching a very dangerous point in Ukraine”, WHO director-general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, and the WHO regional director for Europe, Hans Kluge.

Trucks cannot transport oxygen supplies from plants to hospitals throughout the country, including the capital , Kiev.

The images below are a window into the daily reality in the Kiev children’s hospital, which received journalists on Monday.

Una madre atiende a su hijo que recibe tratamiento por cáncer
Mothers try as best they can to give their children a feeling of shelter, while the fear of further escalation in the war grows.

As of Monday, four children had been treated for shrapnel and gunshot wounds, victi more bombings and clashes between Russian and Ukrainian forces. One of them was seriously ill

Una niña en el sótano del hospital
This boy was with his family in a car when he was injured during the Russian attacks. His younger brother of 6 years passed away
Una niña en el sótano del hospital
Basements are the only safe place for these children. Others, in intensive care, cannot be transferred.

The Office of the High Commissioner for the UN for Human Rights, OHCHR for its acronym in English, reported on March 1 that between the beginning of the invasion the 19 February and midnight on 28 of February had registered “77 civilian deaths, of which 13 were children, and 400 injured civilians, including 26 children ”.

Bebés prematuras Sophia y Diana junto a sus mamaderas
Sophia and Diana were born premature and remain in the emergency shelter.
Kateryna con una de sus bebés en brazos
The mother of the babies, Kateryna, tries to calm Diana.

“Most of these recorded casualties were due to the use of explosive weapons with a wide impact area, including heavy artillery shelling and multiple rocket launch systems, and airstrikes,” OHCHR added in a statement.

“These are only the casualties that we were able to verify, and it is likely that the real number is much higher“, he clarified.

Funcionarios del hospital cargando bidones de plástico con agua
The cell phone allows this child a momentary escape from fear.

Not all of them can be moved to the basement. Patients in intensive care who cannot move have been placed in the least vulnerable areas of the building.

Una enfermera con una madre que tiene un niño en brazos en el sótano del hospital
Hospital officials replenish the water supply while the sirens do not order to go down to the shelter .
Una enfermera con una madre que tiene un niño en brazos en el sótano del hospital
The constant presence of medical personnel is essential for these children to survive .

“You also have to take care of the staff, because if they die or they get injured, what do we do, who is going to take care of the patients?“, a surgeon, Valery Bovkun, told Reuters.

Una madre con su bebé que tiene un autito de juguete
The corridors have become the daily reality of these children.

“Of all things, what we need most is peace… all this is the tip of an iceberg… people, for example , ask me where Where to buy children’s insulin, pharmacies are not open,” said Zhovnir, the chief surgeon.

Un papá lleva a su hijo a lo largo de los pasillos en el sótano del hospital.
Medical staff and families share Ukrainians’ sense of shock at being caught up in a conflict that few thought possible just a few days ago.

The hospital normally treats six to seven children a day for common ailments such as appendicitis, but that number has drastically reduced.

“No they may have disappeared, they just can’t come here“, added Zhovnir.

The situation is equally desperate in other hospitals in the country, such as that of Chernihiv, about 66 km from Kiev, where explosives scattered in the streets mean that children requiring cancer treatment could only be evacuated by helicopter, according to news reports.

Un papá lleva a su hijo a lo largo de los pasillos en el sótano del hospital.
A dad leads his son along the corridors in the basement of the hospital.


Now you can receive notifications from BBC World. Download the new version of our app and activate it so you don’t miss our best content.

  • Do you already know our YouTube channel? Subscribe!