Med Care x Ucraina

Diario di bordo

The activists of Mediterranea Saving Humans who launched the "Med Care in Ukraine" project have returned to Italy. The project has started its activities by bringing basic health care to war refugees in the city of Lviv.
A project that involves a relay rotation of volunteer doctors, nurses and psychologists, for the operation of the new mobile medical clinic, and continuous loads of humanitarian aid, especially medicines. Mediterranea has taken charge of the reception centre for refugees in the Sikhiv district on the outskirts of Lviv, set up with prefabs and run by the Salesian Fathers, where 350 people are currently housed, including 110 children. It is here that our organisation's health workers will be on duty, as well as at the Lviv train station. The mission also saw a series of meetings with Ukrainian civil society realities, including those responsible for the 'Woman in march' project, which provides humanitarian and medical aid to vulnerable women and the LGBTQIA+ community in the war-torn country thanks to 12 communities located throughout Ukraine.

We have started the Med Care project and brought humanitarian aid to the Lviv and Ternopil regions, and what we have seen is of great concern to us: the flow of refugees inside Ukraine remains massive, refugees from the bombed or evacuated cities in the east are pouring into the west of the country where there are not enough facilities to accommodate people fleeing the horror of war.

In Sikhiv camp alone, one of three camps in Lviv, there is a waiting list to get into containers of at least 2,000 people currently living on the streets. The arrival of cold and snow will lead to a very dangerous internal humanitarian crisis. In Lviv those who are lucky today are in a tin container and those who are less lucky have no roof; as temperatures drop and the conflict continues, hundreds of deaths from cold, hunger and hardship are at risk. Ukraine cannot stand alone in assisting war refugees; there is a need to give new impetus to international solidarity so that in a few weeks we are not faced with a humanitarian catastrophe.

The Ukrainian health system is in crisis, especially with regard to the care of refugees arriving from the east and settled in the west of the country. We have been visiting and administering medication to people who have not seen a doctor for some time, many of whom were receiving treatment for chronic illnesses that have been interrupted. Our next relays will bring support to Ukrainian healthcare in crisis due to the war, trying to provide as much supplementary care as possible.

Mediterranea's mission has also brought aid to the Don Bosco centre in Lviv, one of the main engines of solidarity within the country, to the city's central station where medical aid is coordinated, to the 'Internat' centre for psychiatric distress in Ternopil and to refugee families with children also in Ternopil.