Marta Rodríguez (right) in an operation at the Poltava hospital (Ukraine).
When it became known two weeks ago that Russia had invaded Ukraine, Marta Rodríguez Carrasco, a 5th year medical student at the University of Albacete, might not have been more surprised. Last August she had made an exchange in the country and her Ukrainian friends “did not expect it”.
“They have been at war for eight years, but they did not think that Russia was going to take that big step,” the young woman shared with Medical Writing. Since then, he has reported what is happening through the social networks of his acquaintances in Ukraine: “They are doing a very important outreach jobupload a lot of things to Instagram in English and thus spread the situation in their country”.
In addition to reporting what is happening, the Ukrainian medical students: “They are teaching people first aid, how to stop a bleed… Basic things that they will have to see every day”. The girls, for their part, “sew nets to protect the soldiers”, while the boys wait to be recruited. “The positive thing is that, being students of Medicine, they will probably be sent to the army’s medical corps,” Rodríguez reflected.
Without hygiene or asepsis measures, already under normal conditions
When he arrived at the Poltava pediatric hospital, where he was on an exchange, he was surprised by the health situation, since it gave him the feeling of being in Spain in the 1960s: “It was like traveling back in time.” Currently, this center has stopped operations and most of its activity, so some doctors take the opportunity to carry out work to collect medical suppliestrying to transfer to the cities the material that is reaching the borders.
However, the student has acknowledged her concern at the medical level: “I think they are going to have a bad time. Under normal conditions, operating theaters do not have hygiene or asepsis measures. Here a surgeon changes his pajamas every time, puts on sterile slippers, a hat, a mask… And that’s not the case there, they put a kind of gauze on their heads that washed them and I don’t know to what extent that would be decontaminated” .
In Ukraine, all medical supplies and medicines are paid for by the patient
To this situation we must add that, as the young woman explains: “The patient has to provide everything, from basic things such as gauze or gloves for the doctor to attend to, to medications“. The drugs, in fact, can be obtained in all pharmacies “without any type of prescription”, which makes Rodríguez fear that people with more economic resources stock up on medicines, while those who cannot pay for them will be left without they.
“It is very sad to think that people I was going to dinner with or going for a walk with are now either locked up in their houses or helping. As a country they really wanted to move forward and this is holding them back and it will slow them down a lot”, concluded the medicine student.
Although it may contain statements, data or notes from health institutions or professionals, the information contained in Medical Writing is edited and prepared by journalists. We recommend the reader that any questions related to health be consulted with a health professional.