(Ottawa) To help Ukraine, Canada has drawn on its own strategic stockpile of emergency medical supplies, hoarded for a national emergency.
Posted at 4:34 p.m.
Since the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Ottawa has donated more than 375,000 items of medical equipment and medicines from Canada’s strategic stockpile.
This includes first aid and trauma kits, medications and surgical instruments, as well as gloves, masks and gowns.
Canada’s health minister also helped get an international resolution passed this week in Geneva on rebuilding the strained Ukrainian health care system.
Jean-Yves Duclos held bilateral talks to secure the votes required to pass the resolution, which Canada co-sponsored with Ukraine at the meeting of the World Health Assembly, the decision-making body of the United Nations World Health Organization.
The Ukrainian motion, passed by 88 countries to 12, with 43 abstentions, follows attacks by Russian forces on Ukrainian health care facilities and equipment, including ambulances.