Everyone is crying for Ukraine.
On February 24, the sound of gunfire at four o'clock in the morning in Kharkov woke up sleeping Ukrainians and tore apart the world's long-maintained peaceful face.
Two weeks later, despite the divergent views of both sides of the conflict, the United Nations has confirmed at least 1,335 civilian casualties (474 dead and 861 wounded).
Beneath the numbers, there are living beings. The total number of deaths may be recorded, but the numbers themselves do not tell future generations what fear, helplessness and grief they experienced in the face of the threat of death in this conflict.
We want to document those who choose to stay, and the family's lives are filled with countless seemingly everyday moments that reveal despair.
In the motto of an oncologist, "Hospitals are not attacked and are always safe", but in Ukraine, roads are cut off, patients are cut off from medicines, ambulances are destroyed...
Most of them are homeless, there are not even many beds in the hospital to accommodate them, and they sleep in single clothes and on the floor, because here, the opportunity to live is a blessing in itself.
In the conflict, shells hit one life after another; in the hospital, doctors and patients reached an invisible tacit understanding, trying to save one life after another in the war-torn and continuous shells, in the hidden air raid shelters and basements.
More than 2 million Ukrainians are fleeing to neighbouring countries, and the trains are full of old, infirm, old, weak, women and children, but a few choose to stay behind. Leaving is for the sake of one's own life and that of one's family; staying is to save the lives of more people.
Not all patients can afford to flee, but when cancer, dialysis, newborn patients leave their life-sustaining devices, when pregnant women give birth in basements where infection risk is extremely high, when oxygen stations are bombed, when shells fall to ambulances, when supplies of medicines and medical supplies are interrupted... No one can answer, fleeing or staying, which one is more likely to survive.
From the moment the gunshots rang out in the early hours of the morning, the doctors clenched the lancets in their hands.
This, too, is their battlefield.
"The ambulance was bombed and the patient could not come to us"
Volodymyr Voitko, 32, who lives in Kiev, the capital of Ukraine, is a thoracic oncology surgeon at a general hospital. Vladimir had a beard and a calm smile that was characteristic of a doctor. Over the past many years of his career, he has spent most of his time in surgery, radiotherapy and chemotherapy, managing more than 250 patients on a daily basis. After the clashes, Vladimir moved into a hospital. However, the constant sound of artillery fire not far from the hospital made the doctor, who was trying to remain calm and rational, feel increasingly tired. When we ask: Would you like to talk to us about what is happening right now? A day later, he replied to us: Of course, I'll call you in 4 hours.
Vladimir Voitko:
(March 5, 15:20 local time)
The conflict has been going on for some time and the situation is not good.
I'm tired. Surgery on a traumatic patient had just been completed at noon. She was only 29 years old and was bleeding profusely when she was sent, losing about 8 litres of blood. The doctors first stabilized her condition and stopped the bleeding before completing the operation. The girl is very young, and in such a situation, I only hope that she can get better slowly.
Our hospital is called "Shenxian Clinical Hospital", which originally had a very beautiful meaning, but recently this land seems to have lost the protection of the gods.
In Kiev, this is a relatively large general hospital, with more than 500 beds, covering basically all specialties. Difficult diseases that cannot be seen in other hospitals will be sent to us.
I am a doctor in the department of thoracic oncology surgery, a native of Kiev. The hospital has a total of three buildings, and our department is in the surgical building. Before the conflict, the number of surgeries here was about 30 to 55 cases per day.
Dmitry, director of the Center for Innovative Cardiac Surgery at the Fyofhania Clinical Hospital, said: Vladimir (first from right) is the youngest director of thoracic surgery in Ukraine.
When the conflict broke out, no one could turn a blind eye to the sound of gunfire and the explosions on the block. But in the hospital, we want to try to create a stable state and emotion. Don't want to bring panic to this place again.
Almost all surgeons have moved into hospitals. Most doctors have sent their families away from Kiev to safer, more peaceful places.
The doctors themselves then choose to stay in Kiev and stay in the hospital to continue working. I also decided to stay.
We surgeons are basically in the hospital for 24 hours, occasionally 1 to 2 hours out, sometimes to other hospitals to consult peers, sometimes to the market to buy something. We want to keep the hospital running, try to maintain the status quo ante, and minimize the impact of the conflict.
If there is no impact at all, it is a lie.
Ambulances, the most unexpected is the ambulance.
The conflict inevitably spread to civilians, and on one occasion our ambulance exploded — how else could we transfer the sick? What else is there to do?
In Kiev today, the only way to transport patients is by ambulance, and hospitals rely on this only safe way. But now, if ambulances aren't safe anymore, it's going to be scary.
So, do you get it? Do you know what the biggest problem is right now? The biggest problem is that patients can't come to us anymore.
Of course, we also lack medical equipment, drugs, and manpower, but at present, these are not the biggest problems, the biggest problem is to transport patients, transfer patients.
When I was a medical student, my teacher told me:
"Hospitals are not attacked and will always be safe." We all feel that doctors, hospitals, ambulances are at least safe, because no matter what kind of disaster, doctors need to save people.
But that doesn't seem to be the case now, and ambulances and doctors are threatened – almost shattering my previous understanding. What is happening now is completely contrary to what we have received over the years. I couldn't accept it, and when I thought about it, I felt sad.
We really want to help more people. As a result, now because it is impossible to transfer, the biggest problem is the lack of patients, and the doctors are actually missing patients in the face of disaster - doesn't this sound ridiculous?
We can only think of a way under the existing conditions. After the outbreak of the conflict, there were more connections between hospitals in kiev. If there is a patient in another hospital or somewhere who needs our treatment, we will contact each other and take the patient to the nearest hospital.
There are also volunteers supporting medicines, although it seems that the transmission is still difficult.
Before the conflict began, our surgical department received about 6,000 people a year, and the entire hospital had about 100,000 treatments. Most of my patients are cancer patients in long-term management, and there are more than 600 patients who need my surgery throughout the year.
I feel guilty. As a surgeon, after the conflict broke out, I didn't do much surgery, focusing on trauma surgery.
Treatment of cancer patients has also been affected, chemotherapy can barely be sustained, more other types of treatment have been suspended due to the lack of suitable drugs, and radiation therapy can only temporarily complete the treatment of those patients. The cancer patients I usually take care of, they can only go abroad to continue their treatment.
The majority of the patients I am managing now are elderly, with the oldest being 86 years old and the youngest only 6 months old.
Sorry, I need to see a patient, we will contact again next time.
In front of the doctor, she pulled the tube herself
At the Fyofhania Clinical Hospital, where Vladimir is located, the outbreak of conflict falls on each body, spawning countless different dividing lines. Before the demarcation line, doctors go to work, leave work, and go home every day; after the demarcation line, doctors move into the hospital. Before the dividing line, the patient is uneasy but full of expectations, waiting for treatment; after the dividing line, the patient is increasingly desperate for an operation that may never be achieved. The hospital is a field full of special emotions, in the face of disease, people's emotions are more sensitive, but also more likely to feel wandering, uneasy, anxious. After the conflict, the sound of gunfire outside the courtyard wall secretly pushed these negative emotions up, and courage was also eliminated in the invisible place. But at the Feofania Clinical Hospital, people try to maintain the fragile emotional balance of this group, deliberately hiding these bad emotions in their hearts. Everyone is swallowing the suffering in their hearts. Until Vladimir told us that a 60-year-old lady had pulled herself out of a tube...
Disasters can drag people into desperate situations and become a watershed for a person and a family.
At the beginning of the year, the hospital received a 60-year-old woman. She had previously contracted severe COVID-19, which further triggered acute respiratory distress syndrome. By the time I transferred from another hospital, my lungs were completely fibrous.
For those infected with covid-19, only a very small number of people will develop irreversible pulmonary fibrosis, which is then life-threatening, and she is unfortunately one of them.
Before being transferred to Feofania Clinical Hospital, she underwent two months of oxygen infusion treatment, but was unable to save her lungs. Later, the effect of oxygen infusion treatment was not very good, and peers came to our hospital for help.
I've seen a lot of lungs and had a lot of lung surgery, but her lungs are so bad that she can't use them at all, and she can only save her life by doing a lung transplant.
Before waiting for a suitable lung transplant donor, we need to start using ECMO to provide her with continuous in vitro breathing after intubation through the femoral artery and veins.
After connecting to ECMO, her state gradually improved, which made the doctors in several of our departments very excited. After removing the urinary tube, her consciousness gradually became clear, and she could occasionally barely get up and walk. It's really exciting.
△ A 60-year-old lady sits up after ECMO. Photographed by doctors at Fyofhania Clinical Hospital.
In 50 days of ECMO, everything is stable and the test indicators are good. We put her in the highest priority "1A" sequence on the lung transplant waiting list.
For two months, everyone took a breath and hoped to cure her. She herself is also very positive and optimistic, trying her best to cooperate with all the treatment plans of the doctor.
Suddenly, the conflict began, all the plans were disrupted, and the bad news never stopped.
Oxygen, no oxygen. First, because of the difficulty of transportation, the oxygen reserves in many hospitals are rapidly depleted, and trucks cannot transport oxygen from the factory to the hospital.
Then, there was the bombing, the round after round of bombing, and the oxygen concentrator of our hospital itself was destroyed.
But she needed oxygen. We can only connect two oxygen tanks that are running out of energy at the same time to provide her with centralized oxygen.
The consciousness of this white-haired lady was always very clear. How could the continuous bombardment sound hide from her? Every day she witnessed the bombardment outside, listened to the rumbling of cannons, whether it was the hope of completing the lung transplant or the hope of oxygen supply, it was fading little by little, until it was nothing.
Finally, one day, after hearing the last siren in her life, she voluntarily unplugged the intubation of her femoral artery and veins. Then say to the doctor, "I don't want to see and endure so much anymore." ”
Before she fell unconscious, her last words were: "I did this on purpose." ”
We struggled to save the patient for two months, and finally chose to commit suicide in the hospital, leaving our husbands and leaving our daughters who were pregnant. I didn't go to see her family, and I didn't dare think about what would happen to her family.
Through this unfortunate event, the frustration of colleagues could not be digested. A doctor angrily asked: Who is responsible for this?
Yes, who is responsible for this?
During the operation, the bullet hit a window next to her
Lesia Lysytsia is an ophthalmologist at the Okhmatdyt Children's Hospital in Kiev. The day after the clashes broke out, she moved into the hospital with her husband, who was also a doctor, and her two daughters, aged 2 and 5. Despite being in the same hospital, Lesisia only spends 1 hour a day with her child. She couldn't explain to her children what was happening now, or when they could go to the park. Lesisia had to leave the basement where the children were and go to the ground floor for surgery. Once, the bullet hit a window beside her, and the glass shattered to the ground. She needs to take sedative medication every day to fall asleep. As a result of the conflict, Ukraine's largest children's hospital was forced to reduce the number of patients from 600 to 200 and continue to move patients abroad. Lecisia has high cheekbones and has long light brown hair. On the cover photo of her Facebook page, there is a spiral staircase spiraling upwards that leads to a blue circular skylight. The skylight is like an eye, looking down on sentient beings.
After the conflict broke out, life became strange and deformed. Gunfire around the hospital has been intermittent.
My husband and I tried our best to find our daily order in the chaos, getting up on time, washing up, eating breakfast, and then starting the day: contacting patients, uploading cases, doing surgery, and going to the basement at night to play with the children.
△ The doctor and her two daughters.
We try not to read the news as much as we can, but we can't help but wonder what's going on.
We had intended to stay in the hospital to help patients, but as time went on, this firmness was somewhat shaken. If the situation becomes more serious, we must consider plans to retreat to Europe.
We have been in the hospital for 9 days. Many roads to the hospital have been destroyed, and now only security guards and volunteers are available to help pick up patients and transport medical supplies and food. For the sake of confidentiality, I can't tell you the number of security guards and volunteers.
Routine surgery has long since been suspended. We can only select more urgent patients for surgery, and the hospital can do about 40 surgeries a day. Several patients in Kharkiv had made an appointment with me before, but they couldn't come. If these children do not go to the doctor for two weeks, they will most likely need to have an eye transplant afterwards.
At present, the intensive care unit has been moved to the basement, and an emergency trauma ward and operating room are set up on the ground floor. Mild patients were sent to western Ukraine and even further afield to Poland, Italy, Germany and France.
△ Some patients moved to the basement.
The basement was the safest place for mild patients to stay and my two daughters were there. Volunteers take turns watching the children, taking them to games and lessons, as if they were two worlds on the ground.
The volunteers brought a lot of candy. My husband and I used to not allow our children to eat too much sugar, but now we can only make an exception, and one day, they even ate McDonald's.
Two days ago, a panic suddenly came. I couldn't stop fantasizing about the future of us and our children, and I thought about running away with them, or even simply taking poison and committing suicide as a family, and once they died, they would not live this life again.
Sleep becomes fragmented. I had to take sedative medication to get enough sleep for 5 hours and barely get up to work the next day.
My brain couldn't stop thinking because I didn't know when the next bomb would explode. We fight the unforeseen every day, we are proud and frustrated, and more often tired, not knowing when such days will come to an end.
We poured sand into sacks and put it on the street
Pray that the war will come later
Valentina Ivanovna (Валентина Ивановна) is an old lady in her 60s who traveled to China in 2020 to work as a foreign language teacher in Ukrainian at Lanzhou University. She lives on the outskirts of Akhtelka, a city in The State of Samui on the northeastern border of Ukraine. Since 25 February, the city of Achterka has been shelled several times. Her friend, the director of the maternity hospital, who gave birth to her son 2 months ago, is now operating on more women in the hospital. Valentina used WeChat to send a video of the local thermal power plant being bombed, and the smoke above the factory billowed out, obscuring half the sky, and there was no heating in the city in winter. After a brief text exchange, Valentina's phone ran out of battery and subsequently lost contact with us.
Valentina Ivanovna :
(21:00 Beijing time on March 3)
Every day I wake up and I think: Maybe it's all a dream, how can all this happen?
Samui was besieged. I stood on the threshold and heard gunfire and the nearby military base being bombed with vacuum bombs, which are prohibited by the Geneva Conventions.
All want to defend their land from encroachment. My husband, my neighbors, everyone in Samui was looking for bags, and we poured sand into sacks, loaded them into cars, and sent them to barricades on barricades.
During the day, I felt extremely anxious and tried to find something to do to keep myself busy. I wiped the furniture over and over again, even though they had already been wiped countless times, and then kept calling friends and asking: How are you? Still alive?
Fortunately, no one around me was injured.
As soon as the air defense siren sounded, we ran into the basement again, and we still had food for the time being, but since the city was surrounded, things could not be transported in, and we were not sure how long we could hold out.
△ Pregnant women in the basement.
Most importantly, I spent the whole day thinking about how I could go to the other side of the city to see my beloved granddaughter and bring them something delicious. They are 6 years old and 9 years old.
My friend Olga Victorovna Chiva is the director of an obstetrics and gynaecology hospital in Samui. At the hospital, women about to give birth sit in the basement, afraid to take them away without a car.
Some babies are born with abnormalities and they need an intensive care unit. It's a crib under a glass canopy with systems that regulate breathing, blood circulation, and maintain bodily functions, but the device is difficult to move to the basement.
This dean friend of mine, who just gave birth to her son 2 months ago, has no time to rest and there are many pregnant women waiting for her. She has been in the hospital, operating on the women day and night, day and night. Drugs for the treatment of heart and high blood pressure are in short supply in pharmacies, and I can only pray that accidents will not happen.
Thanks to Ruslan
When we first got in touch with Ukraine, due to the language barrier, we contacted some Ukrainian locals, hoping to help with the contact and assistance with the interview, and received help from many Ukrainians. Ruslan, a young man in his twenties who worked for a Chinese state-owned enterprise in Kiev, left Kiev after the conflict began, and groups of citizens withdrew from Kiev, leaving him in Kiev. Ruslan speaks Ukrainian and English, and when we appealed to learn about the current situation in some hospitals, clinics, and even pharmacies in Kiev, Ruslan said: "I will try my best to help." "For the past week, we have received interviews from Ruslan almost every day all over Kiev. Although it is only a few words, through his eyes, we can capture the details of these current medical conditions in Kiev.
I visited an assistant surgeon at a small hospital in Kiev today, and she told me about the situation in many hospitals.
At this small hospital in central Kiev, doctors are freeing up beds and waiting to receive a large number of wounded. There are frequent power outages in hospitals, and stocks of medicines and sterile materials are scarce.
Hospitals can only carry out emergency surgeries, mainly patients with severe COVID-19 infections and those who need oxygen, and patients in hospitals who have no ability to undergo moderate surgery. For patients who have undergone minor surgeries, the doctors can only let them stay in the hospital for a few hours, and the hospital stay will not exceed 2 days.
Pharmacies in kiev city were still open, but of course the supply of medicines was interrupted, and on the first day of the conflict, many people rushed to the pharmacies in panic.
Many people with diabetes struggle, hoping volunteers will help find insulin. Many medicines are not available, mainly for diabetes, heart disease, people with disabilities and cancer. Volunteers are working hard to source medicines all over Ukraine and abroad, hoping to get the medicines to those who need them.
At the clinic in the Ukrainian city of Aktika, doctors slept in the hospital for two weeks due to ongoing conflict around them. Serious bomb raids and shootings eventually left all pharmacies no longer working.
All the COVID-19 patients have returned home. Fortunately, the clinic survived, and doctors once again risked their lives to provide the necessary medicines and food amid bombardments and shouts.
I'll tell you the truth: When the conflict started, everyone forgot about the existence of COVID-19. When missiles bombarded the city, the virus that was already raging in the crowd was shelved.
On March 7, Leicia Lacecia posted an article on Facebook:
The tour guide shouted, "I promise you!" I would get there with everyone (safe place). ”
The woman with the child gave the last half of the glass to an old man.
The woman in my building was watching the gunfire.
The journalist from the war zone worked 24 hours a day before her home was destroyed by missiles.
The volunteer who crossed the city in the midst of the war cut the wall and rescued a cat.
The doctor at the shelter: "You're a good girl, now you have a boy!" ”
When the bus took his family away while he was left at the train station in Lviv, the man cried.
The little boy's parents hosted the displaced in the house, "Let them play quietly, they are all people who have escaped from the war, they want to rest." ”
The woman who gave up her bed in the bomb shelter because, "I can still sit for a while."
The man wrote while chatting in the house: "Smash open the door of my room, there is a bag of potatoes on the balcony, let's take them away."
The one who bakes bread at home and gives it to the neighbors.
Those who buy baby food, because they know, there is a little life in the home.
Those who built bomb shelters for others were covered in blood but did not have time to evacuate.
The men hugged the fugitives from other cities, just to give them a moment of peace.
Those who grieve but don't cry on the crowded train so that others can hold on.
The man who wrote how to make temporary mats and hide raiders in the apartment.
Those who stay in pharmacies and shops.
Those who insist on leaving money in the refrigerator when there are no salesmen.
And the mother in the basement of Kharkiv: we are all fine, you don't have to worry, okay?
They
she
he
…
I always hear the phrase, "Love never withers," and now I think it's true.
I love you
And it will never wither.
Li Lin, Shi Chenjin, Yu Huanhuan | writing
Chen Xin | Editor
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