During nearly two years of full-scale war, russia damaged 1,508 medical facilities and completely destroyed 195 of them. After the de-occupation, our team visited the settlements of Donetsk region, Kharkiv region, Kherson region, Sumy region, and Kyiv region, we focusing our efforts on restoring the destruction and supporting the local population.
With the assistance of the Crown Agents International Development from September 2023 to January 2024, we restored 11 damaged healthcare facilities (HCF).
“The statistics on damaged HCFs are frightening at first glance, but we do not give up. Together with our partners, we have already restored a total of more than 45 HCF in the de-occupied regions. Our goal is to improve patients’ access to medical services during the war,” comments Maria Hryshina, operational director of the “Patients of Ukraine”.
Restoration was carried out promptly, as the damage in many HCFs made it problematic to receive patients during winter.
As a result, together with our partners, we replaced windows, repaired facades, installed doors, carried out roof repair works, and other tasks for the functioning of institutions. Now doctors and nurses can provide all the necessary services, despite adverse weather conditions, instead of going to everyone’s house to keep patients from freezing.
This video features a HCF in the Kyiv region, one of the eleven we renovated as part of the project. This village was under occupation until the end of March 2022. Occupiers lived in the building and badly mutilated it: they made a hole in the floor of the office to use it as a toilet, tore out a window, and lit a fire inside.
Despite the occupation, explosions, and real danger, nurses and doctors stayed and helped their patients. They had to invent and take risks to find an opportunity to heal those in need.
“We are very grateful to the dedicated volunteers and organizations that are helping to restore our dispensary. In addition to replaced windows, insulated walls, and repairs, you gave us faith that Victory will come soon. In our medical facility, it has finally become warm and cozy, almost like before the war!” shared a resident of one of the villages.
Newly renovated dispensaries are not just renovated buildings. For the locals, they are places of strength, warmth, and faith that soon the war will end with the victory of Ukraine, and their neighbors will return home.
