“Since all the patients were on board, we were getting ready to leave and we did make an air raid; so the train was stuck for a while,” said Snor, who led the first such mission for Médecins Sans Frontières. MSF), also known as Doctors Without Borders. “But then, finally, the air raid was lifted and the train started moving, and everyone got a sigh of relief – and you’re on your way. “And as soon as the train starts moving, you feel like you are already halfway there,” Black Art host Dr. Brian Goldman. Snor is among many Canadian healthcare workers who make every effort to care for Ukrainians on the front lines of the war and close to the front lines of the war that began when Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24. “The idea of ​​the medical train came about because we noticed that the trains managed to move remarkably throughout the war from the beginning,” he said. After a security analysis, the team concluded that trains were the safest way to travel at the moment, despite the fact that the station from which the team left was bombed a few weeks earlier. Doctors Nataliia Kyniv, left, and Dmitry Mogilnitski prepare supplies before the first patients board the ship. (Doctors Without Borders)
On March 31, the train departed with the group of patients – all suffering from blast injuries and aged between 3 and 84 – from Zaporizhzhia, in the southeastern part of the country, and transported them about 1,000 kilometers west to the relevant Lviv security. .

Making room for more injured

“When we first entered the country, Médecins Sans Frontières was a bit fanatical, trying to figure out where we could get the most results, where we could help most people, where we could alleviate stress in the medical system.” said Snor. managing a small emergency department in eastern Arizona when not dispatched to a crisis zone. This was Snorr’s fifth mission with MSF. The city of Zaporizhzhia welcomes people who have left Mariupol, which has been under siege for weeks. As a result, hospitals there have many patients with serious injuries that will require extended hospital stays, Schnorr said. “They were looking forward to trying to get patients out of their hospitals because they expect many more patients to come in the next few days to weeks.” CLOCKS Dr. Dan Schnorr explains the evacuation of the medical train: Dr. Dan Schnorr, pic.twitter.com/23fcI2axbl – @ MSF_Ukraine
Railroad staff modified the carriages to make room for patients to lie down, as well as things like oxygen concentrators, intravenous and other medical equipment, Schnorr said. Parts right inside the train entrance were cut to make room for maneuvering stretchers so that the sickest patients could lie down while being transported by ambulance. “We do not have the capacity to take ventilated patients or patients taking medicines to support your blood pressure. But we can take most other patients,” he said. Although the train will be able to carry many more patients each time on future trips for the initial medical evacuation, Schnorr said they selected a small number of patients who would need to be hospitalized for a long time but were fairly stable. to survive on a train route that could be up to 24 hours, as there are checkpoints along the route. “Nine patients were on board, plus family members and caregivers and two cats,” he said. An MSF logo shirt is seen through the window of the first medical train transporting seriously injured patients to hospitals in cities farther away from areas of intense conflict. (MSF)
Dr. Joanne Liu, a pediatric emergency physician from Montreal, was also on the ground with MSF to help assess patients in the days and hours before departure. “We talked to the parents to ask if they wanted a medical evacuation or not,” Liu said. in a blog post he wrote about the MSF website. The first mother said: “I want my child to be confused because I think it is the only opportunity for my child to keep his feet.” And the child looked at us and said, “I want to walk again.”

“I just wanted to do the right thing”

Canadian nurse Laura Orsatti, from Peterborough, Ont., Works at a children’s hospital in Kyiv. She traveled to Ukraine on March 9 and stayed for about a month and is now in her second term in the capital after a four-day trip home to see her family. “I did not want to be a member of an NGO. I did not want to be politically affiliated. I just wanted to do the right thing. So I decided to go to the biggest children’s hospital because I had that experience.” Nurse Laura Orsatti speaks to CBC News from Kyiv on March 17. (CBC)
Orsatti said she had seen a number of injuries resulting from the collision, including a child with a bullet wound that saw his father killed on the street, a one-month-old child with shrapnel wounds, patients buried under rubble and a child under the age of 10 who had been raped in front of his mother’s eyes. He also said he was moved by the strength of the Ukrainians he works for. “They want to provide the best possible care and do what they can to save as many lives as possible. It takes a lot of courage. “Many of them do not have time to go home to see their families, their houses are being blown up and they have to stay here full time.” Hospitals have frequent targets for Russian forces. Orsatti said her hospital in Kyiv had been shot. Here, a bullet hole can be seen from the hospital window. (Submitted by Laura Orsatti)
“You hear the sirens ringing all the time. I hear the Russians flying over us,” Orsati said. The window of a room where he was staying in the hospital was shot, he said. Dr. Richard Hareychuk, a third-generation Ukrainian-Canadian and optometrist in Oakville, OD, has been actively involved in the Ukrainian diaspora efforts in Canada to support their homeland since Russia annexed Crimea in 2014. want to help on the ground in Ukraine to do so through official channels. Global Affairs Canada advised Canadians to avoid any travel to Ukraine and the Canadian embassy in Ukraine suspended its activities amid the conflict. ONE News bulletin on the website of the Ministry of Health of Ukraine, translated into English, said that as of March 3, it had received inquiries from more than 500 doctors, nurses and paramedics from countries around the world, including Canada. Interested groups can register by filling out a questionnairehe said, and hospital coordinators will help arrange development in areas and facilities that need more help at a given time. That help is definitely needed, Hareychuk said. MSF doctor, Dr. Daniel Snor, pictured left, is pictured with Dr. Natalia Maidan and a member of the Ukrainian Railways staff, known only to MSF as Yuri. (Submitted by Daniel Schnorr)
“There may be a small question: ‘Why a doctor?’ Why not more soldiers? “The point is that a properly trained doctor in the field who knows how to prevent someone from excessive blood loss can save lives.”

Lack of nurses

At the children’s hospital in Kyiv, Orsatti said she had noticed there were more doctors than nurses. Schnorr said he has noticed the same thing. When he formed a team for MSF Medical Train, he was unable to recruit local nurses. “I think there was a shortage of nurses before the war even started, as there is in many parts of the world,” he said. But Schnorr said he also suspects some nurses may have left their workplaces to take their children to safety. His crew consisted of a Belgian nurse and a number of Ukrainian medical students working as nurse assistants. Part of the Médecins Sans Frontières medical team prepares for patients who are selected because their injuries are severe enough to justify long hospital stays, but their conditions are stable enough to survive on a train ride of up to 24 hours. (Doctors Without Borders)
Asked if he felt he was in personal danger during the mission, Snore said he was terrified as the group entered the country. “When our team went to Kyiv at the beginning of my mission here, the front lines were not really stable,” he said. However, Médecins Sans Frontières has a very good security team, in which it believes a lot. “I’m very conservative [about] safety when it comes to these things because I have two little daughters. “So I felt comfortable that we had a plan so we could contribute safely,” Schnorr said. “As time goes on, you feel a little comfortable – and maybe that can be dangerous. You do not want to be too comfortable.” On Wednesday, an MSF medical train evacuated patients from Kramatorsk station in eastern Ukraine. On Friday, the same station was hit by at least one Russian rocket, killing dozens, Ukrainian authorities said. Orsatti said she knew she could lose her life in Ukraine. “I’m not afraid to die. I’m afraid my life means nothing, like, I’ve done nothing worthwhile,” he said. “I do not know if I believe in God or anything like that. But if, you know, I meet my former family members, I want them to be proud of me for doing the right thing and trying, you know. And that’s all I really want.” Written by Brandie Weikle. Produced by Colleen Ross, with the help of Brian Goldman.