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 "Someone had to help these people," Verovkina, 43, who works at
Ukraine's National Cancer Institute, said by phone from the capital.
"It was harder for me to do nothing."
Verovkina joins a growing army of medical professionals and
volunteers, from Ukraine and abroad, who have been working under
desperate circumstances to keep the country's healthcare system
going since the conflict started on Feb. 24.
The situation is particularly dire in besieged cities such as
Mariupol and Kharkiv, where days of intense fighting and a lack of
food and medicines threaten millions of civilians, humanitarian
agencies said.
The World Health Organization (WHO) said on Monday its teams were
working round the clock to get supplies into Ukraine. Since March 5,
it has delivered 90 tonnes of medical aid, including emergency
surgery kits, ventilators and essential medicines.
But the WHO has been unable to reach a number of cities where more
and more people have no access to medicines or care and it is lining
up shipments for when they can be delivered, spokesperson Tarik
Jarasevic said from the western city of Lviv.
In Kyiv, the cancer institute where Verovkina works is still
functional, though its surgical departments are only providing
emergency medical care and staff are concerned about the coming days
as fighting escalates in the suburbs of the capital.
Valentina Ocheretenko, chair of the Ukrainian Diabetes Foundation,
said the situation was dangerous for Ukraine's 2.3 million diabetes
patients, 120,000 of whom have type 1 diabetes and require regular
doses of insulin and monitoring to survive.
Every night, she works into the small hours with international
partners to try to match up the dwindling supplies of insulin and
glucose meters to monitor blood sugar levels with the overwhelming
demand.
'IT'S TOO MUCH'
"I fear for people with diabetes, it's too much," Ocheretenko said
by phone from Kyiv, adding that she worries the county's health
system has already "fallen down".
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Her adult daughter, who has Type 1 diabetes, had
to receive emergency care last week after a
dangerous episode of hypoglycemia, or low blood
sugar levels, after struggling to find regular
meals.
She is doing better now but the pressures on
hospitals are acute and some diabetes patients are not always
getting the care they need, said Ocheretenko.
The WHO has warned that infectious diseases, including COVID-19, are
another risk, especially with millions of people fleeing the
fighting on the move in Ukraine and abroad.
Ukraine's Alliance for Public Health is helping patients with
HIV/Aids, tuberculosis and hepatitis. Its ambulances are now
delivering medicines and food, as well as evacuating people from
heavily shelled areas such as the town of Irpin.
The charity has also set up a helpline to ensure people can get the
drugs they need. The Alliance's Inna Gavrylova came up with the idea
after fleeing with her family to the relative safety of the
Ivano-Frankivsk region in western Ukraine.
"I could not sleep at night," she said, as she realised those in
need of constant treatment were especially vulnerable.
Oncologist Verovkina, too, said helping others was the only way to
process the trauma of war.
"Many doctors are volunteering to work overtime. Working helps (us)
to cope with the current situation more easily."
(Reporting by Jennifer Rigby; Additional reporting by Manas Mishra;
Editing by Michele Gershberg and David Clarke)
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