“In a year, 80% of Ukraine's population will be like me. Without a leg”. Report from a hospital in Kherson Oblast

“My teeth fell out during the occupation, my heart jumps out like crazy. I go to the doctors as if I go to school,” says aprematurely aged man in his 60s.

hromadske team is in Velyka Oleksandrivka in the Kherson Oblast. The village was de-occupied by the Ukrainian military seven months ago. Among the administrative buildings, the district hospital was the first to be restored. The rest are still in ruins. “The walls can be rebuilt. But you can't get back the health you lost,” the man is heading to the medical buildings, he wants to see a dentist. We follow him.

We came to see how the medical institution and its patients are living now. The occupation is over, but the Russians are constantly shelling these territories from across the Dnipro River. Spoiler alert: the hospital now has even better equipment and medicines than before the war. But the number of patients has increased – people are being overtaken by long-standing diseases. And the land is mined. Locals hit the mines in the forests and fields. And if these are the obvious consequences of the war, its less visible manifestations in the form of apathy, depression, and anger will eat people up from the inside for a long time.

“Do not break God's commandments, for He will punish you” – and two orcs were immediately killed

When the Russians entered Velyka Oleksandrivka last March, the medical staff of the huge hospital, which served 25,000 residents of three communities, began to leave. A few doctors stayed behind. Among them is the hospital director Ivan Pidvalnyi.

“We were hiding in basements. And we were being shelled and shelled. Missiles were falling on the hospital's territory,” he says, gesturing actively. “We have been working. Our gynecologist even delivered a baby, even though we don't have a department for that. But where should women go? By April, 12 children had been born.”

The village's doctors lasted two months. They rescued as many as they could and transported seriously injured people to bigger cities. Ivan Ivanovych recalls 15-year-old Kolia with abdominal injuries, who had a high fever after surgery. By hook or by crook, they managed to transport the teenager through 42 enemy posts to Kherson. There he was operated on again and recovered.

Negotiating with the Russians is a separate story.

Medical director Larysa Oleksiienko made a poker face and went straight to the Russian commandant. Because ambulances were turning back at the checkpoints.

“I told him that there was a clear agreement between our director and the commandant: to let patients enter the territory controlled by Ukraine. – ‘I don't know anything, no one had agreement with me.’ – ‘Then with someone else who was before you. Let's draw up a written agreement,’ I insisted confidently. And he agreed.”

On another occasion, the Russians entered the hospital and positioned hardware between the buildings. The tank's muzzle was pointed at a nursing home. Thirteen elderly people were then given medicines and sweet teas for a long time after that.

“I told them strictly: ‘We are a medical facility, you cannot have weapons placed here!’ and they listened, they took them out,” says Larysa Oleksiienko.

By the way, there are still signs on the doors of the buildings stating that you are not allowed to bring weapons.

At the end of April 2022, Ivan Ivanovych spent several nights in the cellar of his house, his blood pressure was over 200. Then something flew into the house and almost killed his wife. And at work, during a meeting to discuss where to evacuate patients, the hospital was shelled with cluster bombs. Doctors hid under the table. After that, everyone left. Only one pediatrician, a nurse, and a mechanic remained. The bedridden patients were evacuated to a medical facility in Beryslav, 70 kilometers away, and the hospital was closed.

And so, until October 4, 2022, the day of de-occupation, these three went to work. Pediatrician Lidiia Mihai became a therapist, traumatologist, and surgeon. Unfortunately, the woman does not talk to journalists. “I was just doing my job,” shesays over the phone. She distributed medicines that her colleagues managed to smuggle through the same agreements with the Russians. In particular, in the last months of the occupation, they did it by boat. Due to the blown-up bridges, the Inhulets River became the only way to communicate with the big land. Medicines were transported here, and wounded civilians were transported there.

A priest from the neighboring village of Starosillia negotiated with the Russians for boats.

“They shirtfronted him and tore his beard,” says the hospital director: ‘Do not break God's commandments, for He will punish you.’ And when two orcs were killed at once, they were afraid to approach him: ‘Is he a shaman?’ They were terrified.”

A 10-year-old girl developed diabetes from stress

After the de-occupation, locals, including doctors, began to return to the village. They saw shattered roofs on the buildings, 195 windows smashed, no equipment or cars, and a looted pharmacy warehouse. But two weeks later, the doctors began to receive patients in surviving buildings. Ivan Pidvalnyi, as director, got money for repairs from both the state and international organizations. By the end of November, the hospital was restored. The employees themselves washed off the mold and soot, whitewashed the ceilings, and painted the walls. Now it is better than before the war, and the director is proud. The hospital has new ambulances and an autonomous boiler room that is not affected by power outages. The warehouses have enough food to last until the end of the year, and the hospital kitchen menu includes: “fish and meat cutlets, both steamed and boiled, dumplings and stuffed peppers, as well as buns every night”. We were treated to buns. They were delicious.

And the main pride of the Pidvalnyi is the modern equipment, including ultrasound machines, cardiographs, and a mobile digital X-ray machine; a new tomograph is expected soon. The Red Cross brought aid while we were visiting. This is delivered every month. The doctors like it: the medicines are branded and have a long shelf life (2-3 years). Today they also received a special order – wheelchairs for adults and teenagers.

We pass between the medical buildings. A worker is hoeing a flower bed with blooming tulips and daffodils. There are also small pyramidal thuja planted here. The director is no less proud of them than of the shiny ambulances. He wants to leave behind the memory of a good businessman. He is already retired, but he is a lively guy.

Inside the buildings are typical medical departments of a district hospital. Blue, purple, and light green walls, and high ceilings. Simple flowers in pots, the smell of disinfectants. Between the floors, there is a giant painting with a pastoral landscape.

Now the hospital has 124 employees. They serve 80 thousand people. We have added villagers from communities where hospitals were destroyed or looted.

“At first, the flow of people was huge,” says Larysa Oleksienko. “Because of the occupation, there were more strokes and heart attacks, untreated pneumonia, and blood pressure problems. In general, people have lost their health,” she sighs. “We are gradually restoring it. Out of my 130 insulin-dependent patients, three have died. A 10-year-old girl developed diabetes from stress.”

She is concerned about the psychological state of the locals. She says that the psychiatrist, neurologist, and psychologist have a lot of work to do.

“People are depressed: there is no work, there is no place to live, or there is no money to repair their homes.”

Mostly men hit mines, women are more cautious

Dentists, neurologists, and surgeons are most in demand by locals. Ihor Pavlivskyi moved to work in Velyka Oleksandrivka from Beryslav, as did two of his colleagues. The town near the Dnipro River is mercilessly shelled every day. The young, agile, lively surgeon moved to the village with his family. He confirms that the villagers are morally exhausted and sick after the occupation.

“People are fighting over humanitarian aid. They are unhappy with everything. They are angry with the collaborators who were interrogated and released. Most [people] aged 30 to 50 are apathetic. They want nothing: there is no work. There is fear: what if the 'Russians' come back? The older ones at least work in the gardens, they are distracted.”

I ask what surgical cases he has now.

“Mine-blast injuries. 2-3 times.”

“For a week?” I ask again.

“A day! And these are the wounded, and there are also dead,” thedoctor states.

Ihor explains that people hit mines along the Inhulets River, where the front line used to be. And you can't even go there, just like you can't go to the woods for firewood, because they are also mined:

“But people are going because they have nothing to heat their houses with, they need to cook for their children. This is a big problem. And there are metal collectors. A few months ago, a guy who hasn't had a penny to his name boasted to everyone that he had 50 thousand hryvnias. He collected brass from bullet casings and sold it somewhere. But this kind of luck is for one or two times. His brother, who also went to collect brass, got blown up later. It's good that he survived.”

He tells us about his grandfather, whose shin and foot were blown off by an anti-personnel mine when he went fishing.“Didn't you see the mine?” – “No, I saw it, and I was bypassing it.” That is, he consciously walked around it.

Pavlivskyi says that women are blown up ten times less often than men. Because they don't go anywhere. They only get caught in the shelling that Russians are using to cover Kherson Oblast from the other side of the Dnipro. In Velyka Oleksandrivka they provide first aid and then send the seriously wounded to Kryvyi Rih. The less seriously injured ones are treated on the spot. Today Pavlivsky has a 36-year-old strong man on the operating table. His left leg is missing below the knee, and the Part of a crippled or amputated limbstump is festering. He has a black sock on his intact leg. He has a purse on his stomach. A month ago he went to the forest with his friends to collect firewood. His friends were safe, he was injured. After treatment in Kryvyi Rih, he was sent back in bad condition.

“They ruined my leg,” theman is angry.

Pavlivskyi says the necrosis has spread above the amputation site, and the doctor needs to remove it. After treatment, the wounded man will receive a disability and will be thinking about prosthetics.

A few minutes later, the doctor comes out of the operating room and says that the anesthesia hasn't taken effect yet, so we have to wait.

“In a year, 80% of Ukraine's population will be like me. Without a leg”

In one of the wards, a man is lying on a bed with stale linen, also without part of his leg below the knee. Only the right one. The wound is bandaged, and blood has soaked the bandage. The wounded man is after anesthesia, and his head is a bit fuzzy as he sometimes answers strangely. He also listens to gloomy music. He laughs that it matches the general atmosphere. He speaks sometimes in Russian, and sometimes in Ukrainian.

He says that five weeks ago he went to the “orcish positions” in the forest to collect wooden slats to make something.

“I knew this could happen (hitting a mine – ed.), so I took a tourniquet from the first aid kit, the Italians sent us. I saw a bicycle path on the grass, so someone was there. Back and forth. I made my way there and picked up some slats. I saw green plastic mines with a cross on top. I went around them. And then I got hit! I lost my leg. But I was not afraid. My thoughts were clear, like software. No tears or snot. I bandaged my leg quickly because I could have died. And I started crawling to a place where people could be. I did not take my phone.”

After an hour and a half of crawling through the sand and mud, the man made it to an asphalt road. By then, his wound was hurting so badly that he was losing consciousness. A resident on a moped saw him, but he also had no phone. By the time he ran to the hospital to get an ambulance, the wounded man was already howling.

“The nurses came angry: 'What the fuck are you bastards doing up there?’ They were so pissed off.”

He talks for a long time about all the stages of treatment, and then adds seriously:

“In a year, 80% of Ukraine's population will be like me. Because there are a lot of mines. Some weigh 100 grams and are carried by magpies. Write in huge letters that even if people have walked there three times, you should not go there. Because it still can explode,” he shrugs.

He laughs: “I heard that there is a law somewhere that people insane like me are given a prosthesis for free."

A nurse brings a pair of slippers to the ward. She throws one under the wounded man's bed. I realize that the other one is for a patient from the operating room.