Date of publication: 13:31, 10.01.23
Category: War
Number of views: 3
Time to read: 4 min

Life Under Never-Ending Shellfire: Vovchansk Hospital is Filled With Wounded, Doctors Have to Run Between Surgery Rooms

Dozens of shells hit the city daily, and more and more casualties are admitted to local hospital every day.

Life Under Never-Ending Shellfire: Vovchansk Hospital is Filled With Wounded, Doctors Have to Run Between Surgery Rooms

No electricity, no gas supply and never-ending shellfire. In borderline town of Vovchansk, Kharkiv Region, people are trying to survive despite the dangerous neighborhood with the enemy. Every day, the invaders barrage with mortars and artillery critical infrastructure, residential buildings and even a hospital, where Ukrainian doctors had to save the lives during the Russian rule, TSN reports.

Dozens of shells hit the city daily, and more and more casualties are admitted to local hospital every day. There are no patients with flue or heart conditions here - only victims of Russian aggression.

This hospital has recently become a target of the enemy. A shell landed the yard, but fortunately, there were no new casualties. "It happened twice today. There shells landed here often on December 25th, on Christmas. On December 31st, 15 minutes before the New Year, we lost the power supply", the hospital staff recalls.

Doctors are trying to adapt to the constant threat. When they hear the first explosion, the hospital personnel immediately rushes to hide the patients behind two walls, while surgery rooms were moved to the other part of the building away from the Russian border. "Now we make surgeries here because the windows do not face the border. We treat dozens of injured patients, and sometimes as soon as we are done in one surgery room, we have to immediately run to another. There are day, when we have to run back and forth between the surgery rooms up to 5 times," intern doctor Tetiana Velyhoria says.

However, according to doctors, they have already used to the artillery strikes and it is still better to works under shellfire, them under Russian rule. Vovchansk had been controlled by Russians for six months. All this time, doctors were forced to provide assistance to the enemies. "When we had to treat them, the hardest thing for us was to somehow deal with the feeling that they are actually not our patients, they are our enemies. It was a great challenge. Still, we remembered the provisions of the Geneva Convention, according to which we, as a European state, are obliged to provide medical care regardless of who the person is, and on what side this person fights," a local surgeon admits.

"The worst thing is that we had to treat people who come to our land with weapon in hand, people who could easily turn against you. That was the most challenging," the intern doctor adds.

Right now, the hospital is cut-off from power supply, because the power transmission lines were damaged in the last artillery strike, when the shells landed in residential area. Uragan MRLS missile left a giant crater in a yard of an apartment block. "We are only 3-4 kilometers away from the borders, so Russian shell may come in any time. The explosions may thunder at 6 am, at 12 noon, at night, during the day. They are unpredictable. Russians barrage us mostly from artillery or mortars", the local police say.

There is also no gas supply in the city, because before the full-scale invasion the blue fuel was coming from Russia. "We are left without gas and when it will be, we also do not know, unfortunately. Today electricity is the only thing that keeps people warm. Unfortunately, the light is also not always on, but our electricians, thanks to them, are constantly repairing", the locals say.

People flee the city every day, because it is impossible to live here without heat and in constant danger. Before the war, 18 thousand people lived in Vovchansk, but now its population is barely 4 thousand. However, all those who leave believe that they will return home soon.

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