How MSF is responding
MSF teams remain in Ukraine, and we are currently seeking ways to adapt our response as the conflict situation evolves.
Our current emergency response
We currently work with approximately 140 international staff in Ukraine and employ more than 470 Ukrainian staff. More are joining the team every day. They work as medical staff (surgeons, doctors, nurses); psychologists; logistics and administration; and management.
Since the 24th of February MSF has brought more than 800 metric tonnes of medical and relief supplies into Ukraine. Much of it has already been dispatched to hospitals and health centres, or to the Ministry of Health for onward transport to the places where it is most needed. Our teams are currently present in Berehove, Bila Tserkva, Dnipro, Ivano-Frankivsk, Kharkiv, Kyiv, Lviv, Mukachevo, Odesa, Poltava, Pokrovsk, Uzhhorod, Kropyvnytskyi, Vinnytsia and Zhytomyr.
Assisting displaced people
Many displaced people are now sheltering in Lviv and other towns in western Ukraine. Often, they have left their homes with only what they can carry. Local volunteers and civil society organisations are working hard to help them, but conditions are harsh, with available accommodation already full to overflowing and temperatures as low as -10 at night. MSF is donating a large supply of cold weather items (sleeping bags, warm clothes, tents) to civil society organisations supporting displaced people and refugees.
Overlapping medical needs
So far, the focus has been on surgical, trauma, ER (Emergency Room) and ICU (Intensive Care Unit) equipment and drugs. But a broader picture of other key medical items is starting to emerge insulin for diabetes patients, medicines for patients with other chronic diseases such as asthma, hypertension, or HIV.
Medical train
On 1 April we completed our first medical train referral, taking nine patients who had been wounded in or near Mariupol from hospitals in Zaporizhzhia to hospitals in Lviv. We transported them on a two-carriage train kitted out as a basic hospital ward, with a team of nine MSF medical staff on board.
More than 594 patients have been medically evacuated to date, with their family members—including 78 orphans evacuated from an orphanage. Further medical referrals by train are planned as the urgent requests from hospitals in the east continue to grow, while a larger and more highly medicalised train is being got ready for use. We have completed 18 referral journeys to date.
Regional responses