Ukrainians salvage what they can from key children’s hospital after Russian strike

Odesa: Daryna Vertetska was sitting with her eight-year-old daughter in Ukraine’s largest children’s hospital when Russian missiles began to ring out in the sky.

Her daughter, Kira, was receiving treatment for her cancer as the explosions boomed across the capital, Kyiv.

“We decided not to interrupt it,” Vertetska said of the treatment.

Dr Ihor Kolodka, covered in his own blood, helps others clear rubble after a Russian missile strike on the Ohmatdyt children’s hospital.Credit: The New York Times

As Kira continued her treatment, a missile slammed directly into the Okhmatdyt children’s hospital, triggering an explosion so loud it defied description, she said. Shards of flying glass cut into the child’s skin.

“She was very frightened,” said Vertetska, 33. Bloodied but alive, the pair scrambled through the smoke and dust to safety.

Now, the hospital where Kira had spent five months receiving lifesaving treatment is gone, another medical facility destroyed by Russia in its yearslong invasion of Ukraine.

As exhausted rescue workers finished sifting through the rubble of the hospital on Tuesday, doctors and nurses raced to help the scores of critically ill children who now must find care elsewhere, including many undergoing intensive cancer treatments like Kira.

No children were killed at the hospital, but its destruction marked one of the worst days of violence against Ukrainian civilians in months. More than 30 people were killed in Kyiv alone. The Russian assault targeted the capital and cities throughout the country.

“I don’t want to, but I think I’m losing hope,” Vertetska said.

The attack at the hospital left young patients sitting on the street with IV drips attached to their arms. The bombing also damaged Ukraine’s most sophisticated laboratory for testing and confirming certain types of cancer, the Ukrainian Health Ministry said, adding that it was evaluating the state of the equipment to see what could be restored.

“It is terrifying because this is the only reference laboratory in Ukraine that confirms all oncohematological diseases,” Dr Natalia Molodets, the head of the pediatric hematology department at the Odesa regional children’s hospital, said, referring to blood cancers.

Firefighters hose down the flattened corner of a building after a Russian missile strike on the Okhmadyt children’s hospital in Kyiv.Credit: The New York Times

Even in the first weeks of the war, when Russian forces were trying to seize Kyiv, the laboratory continued to operate, according to Molodets.

“For our children, it is vital,” she said.

Russia has targeted Ukrainian medical facilities since the first days of the war, a pattern outlined by a range of international rights organisations. The bombing of a maternity hospital in Mariupol in the weeks after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine was an early indication of Moscow’s brutal tactics.

As of this April, the World Health Organisation said it had verified 1682 direct attacks on medical facilities using heavy weapons, resulting in 128 deaths and 288 injuries of staff members and patients.

About the same time that the children’s hospital was hit, debris from another Russian missile crashed into the Isida maternity hospital and a neighbouring private clinic elsewhere in Kyiv. Nine people were killed in that strike, including two children.

Another two children – Maksym Symaniuk, 10, and his 9-year-old sister Nastia – were killed by falling missile debris at their home that day, according to the Ukrainian Karate Federation.

Okhmatdyt children’s hospital director Volodymyr Zhovnir delivered testimony about the strike at an emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council this week.

“Both children and adults screamed and cried from fear and the wounded from pain,” he said. “It was a real hell.” More than 300 people were injured, including eight children, according to Zhovnir. Two adults were also killed, including one doctor.

At the Security Council meeting, Moscow denied that it had targeted the facility, despite video footage and missile fragments collected by Ukrainian security services that suggest the hospital was hit by a Russian Kh-101 cruise missile.

Ambulances had to evacuate patients to other hospitals.Credit: The New York Times

International organisations including UNICEF and the Victor Pinchuk Foundation in Ukraine have pledged to help rebuild the hospital. But with some 7000 complex surgeries performed at Okhmatdyt annually, doctors say it will not be easily replaced.

US President Joe Biden, who is welcoming Western leaders to Washington for the 75th anniversary of NATO on Tuesday, issued a statement saying the attack served as “a horrific reminder of Russia’s brutality”.

Children who are treated at Okhmatdyt are often unable to evacuate to the hospital’s bomb shelter during regular air raids because moving them would interrupt their care. Many of the patients are now being transferred to other hospitals across Ukraine, including in Odesa and Lviv.

As the nation’s top children’s hospital, Okhmatdyt was also the place where children who experienced intense physical and emotional trauma were sent for treatment. The staff is trained to handle some of the most difficult medical situations. But many said nothing could have prepared them for the horror of the Russian attack.

Volunteers clean debris from a building after the strike on Okhmadyt children’s hospital.Credit: The New York Times

Nazar Borozniuk, a physical therapist at the hospital, said it was pure luck that no children were killed.

A video clip he filmed from inside the hospital after the attack showed ceiling panels and broken glass on the floor. “This is how everything looks now,” he says in the video. “I hope nothing falls on our heads.”

Speaking by phone Monday evening, Borozniuk described the harrowing scenes that had played out in front of patients and staff at the hospital. “We started evacuating children, parents and families,” he said.

The scene was so chaotic that Borozniuk said his feelings “just disappeared.” But as he drove home Monday evening, hours after the hospital was hit, he finally began to process what had happened. “There will definitely be psychological consequences for everyone,” he said.

“We are all human.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

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