“I still have splinters on the back and on the top of my head”, says Yevgueni, lying on a bed in the Kharkiv regional hospital. On the pillow, her head is wrapped in white gauze. We can still see that his head has been shaved. He was injured in the head by shrapnel during a bombardment.
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Yevgueni is 40 years old. He was queuing outside the post office to pick up a package when he was hit. The shards are now frozen in his skull. Kharkiv is one of the hardest hit areas along with Mariupol, although the city is not under siege. At least 500 people have been killed there, and 2,000 injured over the past month. The hospital is therefore forced to provide war medicine. “They tried to remove the shards with an operation but they were afraid it would cause bleeding. So they left them.”continues Yevgueni resigned.
Doctor Vadislav Kalouchka has seen this type of injury regularly in Kharkiv since the beginning of the Russian offensive. He works in the neurology unit of the regional hospital center. “These are mainly head injuries from the shrapnel of the bombshe confirms. There are also injuries to the arms, legs and spine. Most of the injured become paraplegics.”
This hospital is located in the heart of the city. It is an eight story building. The windows are caulked, with cardboard and sometimes x-rays from former patients, “because we are afraid that they will shatter, explains Dr. Kalouchka. On tries to protect ourselves and our patients. When our regional administration was bombarded by a missile, we felt it strongly in our hospital.”
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Despite repeated bombardments in Kharkiv, the hospital is not overwhelmed. Military hospitals are on the front line. But there are still extra beds in the hallways. They are used for caregivers, explains Maxim Khaoustov, the head of the general medicine department. “It’s because not only the patients live here but also the doctors. We do this because of the transport that does not work in the city”. So no choice. For Dr Khaustov, “Doctors have to live here.”