POKROVSK - Before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in late February, three hospitals in government-controlled areas of the country’s war-torn Donetsk region had facilities to care for premature babies. One was hit by a Russian airstrike and the other had to close as a result of the fighting ‒ leaving only the maternity hospital in the coal mining town of Pokrovsk still operating.
Myroshnychenko, the site’s only remaining neonatologist, now lives at the hospital while her 3-year-old son divides the week between staying at the facility and with his father, a coal miner, at home.
Even when the air-raid sirens sound, the babies in the hospital’s above-ground incubation ward cannot be disconnected from their lifesaving machines.
Russia and Moscow-backed separatists now occupy just over half the Donetsk region, which is similar in size to Sicily or Massachusetts. Pokrovsk is still in a Ukrainian government-controlled area 60 kilometers (40 miles) west of the front lines.
Inside the hospital’s maternity wards, talk of the war is discouraged.
Although fighting in the Dontesk region started back in 2014, when Russia-backed separatists began battling the government and taking over parts of the region, new mothers are only now being kept in the hospital for longer periods because there’s little opportunity for them to receive care once they have been discharged.
More than 12 million people in Ukraine have fled their homes due to the war, according to U.N. relief agencies. About half have been displaced within Ukraine and the rest have moved to other European countries.
As the war reaches the six-month mark, chief physician Dr. Ivan Tsyganok and his colleagues says they have a more hopeful reason to stay.
“These children we are bringing into the world will be the future of Ukraine,” says Tsyganok. “I think their lives will be different to ours. They will live outside war.”
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, has already killed some 9,000 Ukrainian soldiers, a general said, and the fighting Monday showed no signs that the war is abating.
-AP