Sometimes our humanitarian mission is a bit like farming in the old days: it often takes months from the initial idea to the first communication with partners to the actual procurement and final fruition.
As previously reported, the Russian attacks on the Ukrainian power supply grid are continuing. Currently, our colleagues in the rescue service in Kharkiv only have power from the socket for hours at a time, if at all.
Nighttime rescue mission in Kharkiv yesterday. Due to power outage following a Russian strike on the local power plant, everything is dark: no traffic lights, no lights, no internet nor telephone.
The images are the same from all over Ukraine today. Since the conclusion of the Russian presidential elections, the biggest wave of air strikes since the beginning of the war has been rolling in.
One of our longest-running projects continues to be in high demand. We have recently been able to provide and deliver a large consignment of general surgical instruments to the Mykolayiv municipal hospital free of charge.
Our young anesthetists in Ukraine are delighted with the delivery of two fully operational portable ultrasound probes and the corresponding iPads. I have already reported elsewhere on how our colleagues are constantly training themselves and others to use more and more regional anaesthesia.
These scantily clad men in the snow looking so friendly have a serious background. They are colleagues from the #Charkiv ambulance service who are practising how to prevent hypothermia in patients.
While the first signs of spring can already be seen here, it is still bitterly cold in eastern Ukraine. Together with our partners Libereco – Partnership for Human Rights - and X-Traverse #Kharkiv, we have sent a total of 1000 children's sleeping bags to the districts close to the front line there.
We have acquired pool of new surgical instruments from a large donation in kind. We regularly send the inventory to Ukrainian clinics, which can order instruments and tools from it. The appropriate items are then delivered to Ukraine free of charge.
In Russia's first Rocket attacks on the city of Kharkiv in Eastern Ukraine this year, several of our rescue service colleagues were injured by so-called double-tap strikes. This involves firing at a (civilian) target several times in intervals in an attempt to kill or injure rescue workers.