Ukraine: Doctors from occupied city open hospital in Kyiv
A team of doctors and nurses who fled Mariupol as Russian forces closed in on their hospital are starting up a new medical center in the Ukrainian capital to serve people displaced by the war
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — A nurse wounded by a Russian sniper was spirited out wrapped in sheets. Another, sickened by the thought of working for the people who destroyed his home, sneaked out a side door and walked out through Mariupol’s shattered streets.
Doctors shed their scrubs for street clothes. And one by one, the staff of the largest hospital in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine slipped away as Russian forces seized control of the city's center.
Months later, around 30 staff members from Mariupol’s Hospital No. 2 have reassembled in Kyiv. Along with 30 specialists from a cardiac hospital in Kramatorsk, a Donetsk city that remains under Ukraine's control, they are opening a pared-down version of a public hospital to help displaced Ukrainians in need of care.
Dmytro Gavro, a nurse who is studying to become a cardiologist, recalls each child who arrived at the hospital in Mariupol during the dark days of March, when the city was under siege and bombardment following Russia's Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine.
