Mothers and babies seek solace in the drab basement of Kyiv’s Ohmatdyt Children’s Hospital, where makeshift mattresses and blankets are put out on either side of the concrete aisle.
Older children who are too ill to return home or evacuate the capital with their families as a result of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine are adjusting to life under siege by avoiding windows and sleeping in corridors.
Staff, patients, and their relatives relate the shock of being caught up in a battle that few could have predicted even a few days ago. Their concern, like that of others, is survival.
“These are people who are unable to obtain medical treatment at home; they cannot survive without medication, medical therapy, or medical professionals,” top surgeon Volodymyr Zhovnir told reporters on Monday.
Ohmatdyt, the country’s largest hospital of its kind, used to have up to 600 patients, but now has roughly 200, he stated during a government-organized media visit to the state-run clinic in central Kyiv.
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