Less than 5 kilometers from the hospital in Brovari, the Ukrainian army is fighting to prevent the largest Russian military column inside Ukraine from entering the city and from there, following the 25 kilometers in a practically straight line to the center of the capital, Kiev.
Civilians living in villages and small towns in the region who were left behind because they were too old, sick or poor to escape on their own are now being evacuated. The surroundings of Brovari are not served by rail services, and many of the bypasses are under Russian command or within range of the Moscow Army’s artillery.
The fighting that continues along the main road linking Kiev and Belarus has affected civilians like Ivina, 76, who survived a bombing that hit her home in the early hours of the 17th.
“My bed was all covered in glass — which cut my body, my arms, my back. A part of the ceiling fell on my face, I didn’t understand what was happening when I woke up feeling so much pain”, he says. “Then I remembered: we are at war.”
Her daughter, Izabella, who accompanied her to the hospital wearing yellow duct tape wrapped around her right arm as a sign of loyalty to the Ukrainian government, says part of her family is Russian and does not understand the purpose of the war. She shows on her phone photos of the effects of the bomb that could have taken her mother’s life.
As negotiations for a ceasefire run parallel to new attacks, a way for the Russians to keep up the pressure, in Ukraine’s daily life the convincing power of sirens that warn of possible air strikes seems to have gained strength.
The information that a theater that served as a shelter for hundreds of people – including children – was hit by an air strike in Mariupol renewed the concern of staff at the hospital in Brovari. The place mainly receives soldiers and militiamen wounded on the front lines, and doctors fear that Russia could attack the building at any moment.
With every alarm of the sirens, they flee to the makeshift bomb shelter in the basement, where the water, gas and sewage pipes are. The temperature, like the height of the ceiling, is low, forcing people to walk bent over through narrow and sometimes smelly corridors.
Only a service elevator reaches an isolated part of the basement, which cannot be used as a shelter. As a result, doctors are unable to transfer patients every time the alarm goes off.
The solution found is to take patients to the hallways, as far away from the windows as possible — and preferably as close as possible to the stairs that lead to the basement.
So that no one is left absolutely alone in the event of an airstrike, doctors have decided that the teams who take care of the most serious cases must stay with their patients no matter what. They are only allowed to leave their post after an express order from the boss.
So far, the hospital’s management has almost immediately been able to transfer all critically ill patients to hospitals in Kiev.
“Yesterday [quarta, 16], we received many who needed to undergo surgery. People injured during bombings, with shrapnel, some with amputations. Once they were stabilized, they were taken to a military hospital in Kiev,” said orthopedist Sergei Omelchenko, who works at a private clinic in the capital but now helps Brovari’s team.
The risk of the hospital becoming a target is seen as real in the context of recent events in Kiev. In recent days, three of the worst attacks in the capital have been on residential buildings — among thousands of evacuated buildings, those affected were full of civilians who for some reason had not left the city.
In the western region of Kiev, close to the front where Ukrainians and Russians are fighting in Bucha and Irpin, on Tuesday (15) the base hospital of region 7 – which received wounded civilians from these two cities – was hit by a mortar that destroyed the emergency entrance.
The administration entrance, unsuitable for the movement of stretchers, has become the door where ambulance crews leave their patients. With virtually all civilians having left the area, the hospital now also receives many wounded soldiers.
In front of the small counter where two secretaries work, many other soldiers arrive nervous, breathless and armed. Mention the surname of the person they want to visit at the reception. Rushing to get in as soon as possible, they are stopped and instructed by security to leave their weapons with a policeman who guards the entrance and checks the documents of everyone who arrives.
Visibly upset, crying and calling enemy troops cockroaches, a Ukrainian left the hospital saying he would kill all Russians if he could. “Go back to Irpin and fight like a man,” said one of the secretaries, irritated by the behavior of the soldier who ran out of the doorframe.
In the background, incessant explosions are a constant warning that the situation in hospitals around Kiev could quickly deteriorate.
