Massive Russian attacks hit several locations in Ukraine on Wednesday, leaving millions without electricity.
Many of the missiles were sent to the capital Kyiv, where surgeons had just opened the chest of a heart patient when the power went out in the operating room of the Kyiv Heart Institute in the evening.
Inside the operating room, nurses and assistants had to use flashlights to illuminate the operating table for surgeons, while generators provided electricity to operate vital equipment, he writes. The New York Times.
– It will be unbearable
– All power has disappeared from the operating room, the director of the institute Borys Todurov said in a video he released after the accident, according to the newspaper.
– We’ve made it on our own so far. But it gets worse every hour. It’s been several hours now that there’s no water. We only perform the necessary operations.
CHALLENGING: When the power went out in a hospital in the city of Dnipro on Wednesday, doctors had to do what they could to save critically ill patients. The hospital director later shared a photo on Facebook of one of the operations. Photo: Sergio Ryzhenko / Facebook
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Affected children’s ward
In Kiev, a children’s intensive care unit was also affected by the widespread power outages, according to the TV channel Current time.
An anesthetist tells the channel that a number of devices the children depend on for survival stopped completely before the generators kicked in. This was true for ventilators, heat lamps, and intravenous administration of nutrition and drugs.
– All this equipment is vital for these children, said anesthesiologist Vladimir, according to the channel.
Two kidney transplants were also performed in a hospital in the capital when the blackout broke out, writes Kyrylo Tymoshenko – deputy head of the Ukrainian presidential office, on Telegram. The hospital had to switch to emergency generators.
– Ukrainian doctors are invincible, writes Tymoshenko.
MANY WOUNDED: Medical personnel help an injured Ukrainian soldier at a hospital in the town of Mykolaiv in early November. Photo: LIBKOS/AP/NTB
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Important equipment missing
At the Mechnikova hospital in the city of Dnipro, there were “dozens of critically ill patients on operating tables” when the power went out on Wednesday.
– Anesthesiologists and surgeons had to wear headlamps to save them, wrote hospital director Sergii Ryzhenko Facebook.
Rocket Attack: “Winter of Horror”
In the southern city of Kherson, recently taken from Russian control, health workers have long been working in difficult conditions. Here many work without electricity, using headlamps, mobile phones or torches. In some hospitals, even very important equipment is being knocked out, he writes ap.
– Respiratory machines don’t work, X-ray machines don’t work… There is only one portable ultrasound machine and we always carry it with us, said Volodymyr Malishchuk, head of the surgical department of a children’s hospital in Kherson. Press Agency.
DELIVERY ROOM HIT: A small delivery room in the city of Vilnyansk was hit earlier this week by a Russian attack. A newborn died. Here, crews scour the ruins after the attack. Photo: Katerina Klochko / AFP / NTB
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The lack of electricity also causes elevators to stop, which makes it difficult to transport patients within the hospital.
During a rocket attack on Tuesday, 13-year-old Artur Voblikov was shot. Medical staff had to carry the teenager up six flights of stairs to the operating room where his arm was amputated.
As of Thursday this week, the hospital had received three children injured in Russian rocket attacks, according to Malishchuk. Many of the children arriving at the hospital have head injuries and extensive internal organ damage.
WAITING IN THE DARK: As 13-year-old Artur Voblikov lay on the operating table and had his arm amputated, his mother and sister sat outside in the dark corridor of the hospital and waited. Photo: Bernat Armangue / AP / NTB
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WHO: Over 700 attacks
On Monday, a couple of days before the large-scale rocket attack, WHO director for Europe, Hans Kluge, visited the war-ravaged country. According to Kluge, there are already hundreds of Ukrainian hospitals and health centers without fuel, water and electricity, Reuters reports.
– The Ukrainian healthcare system is facing its darkest days of the war so far. They have suffered more than 700 attacks and have now also become victims of the energy crisis, said Kluge, who believes Russia’s attack on critical infrastructure is “a clear violation of international law and the rules of warfare”.
Millions of Ukrainians have been living with constant power outages for several weeks, partly due to direct missile attacks, partly because the authorities distribute available electricity by switching the regions on and off, writes NTB.
Planned power outages were also required in many places to make repairs possible before the onset of winter. On Friday the temperature in Kiev is around 0 degrees.
