In Ukraine, Gruesome Injuries and Not Enough Doctors to Treat Them Days after Russian forces invaded, Yaroslav Bohak, a…

In Ukraine, Gruesome Injuries and Not Enough Doctors to Treat Them

Days after Russian forces invaded, Yaroslav Bohak, a young cardiovascular surgeon, was at home with his family in the relative safety of western Ukraine, when a colleague placed a desperate call from the east, pleading with him to come help.

Many doctors had fled the fighting, his friend said, and conditions at the hospital resembled a bygone era of warfare, with the surgeons who remained amputating limbs, instead of trying to repair them, to save grievously wounded soldiers.

As Russian forces pummel eastern Ukraine with a mix of artillery, airstrikes and rocket attacks, frontline hospitals, many of them in poorer, rural areas, have become overwhelmed. They are severely short-staffed or have been abandoned completely, as doctors and nurses have fled the violence. Read more

@nytimes