While the violence outside rages, intensive care unit workers in Ukraine’s second-largest city engage in a fight with COVID-19. The Kharkiv Regional Clinical Infectious Disease Hospital, the city’s major institution for treating pandemic virus patients, has had all of its windows closed.
According to hospital director Pavel Nartov, air raid sirens sound at least once a day, pushing the most vulnerable patients into the facility’s makeshift bomb bunker. Dealing with ICU patients on ventilators is the most difficult and risky element of the operation, but it is also the most vital, according to him, because oxygen tanks could be damaged by bombs and shrapnel if exposed.
“Bombing occurs from sunrise to sunset. Fortunately, no explosives have exploded near our medical institution. Having stated that, it might happen at any time “He informed the Associated Press.
Russian forces have been bombarding the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv since the commencement of the conflict, resulting in the damage of residential structures and the evacuation of significant crowds.
COVID-19 incidences in Ukraine reached a new high in February, but the fighting has taken its toll since then. Concerns about COVID-19 have subsided as the attention has shifted to leaving the fighting.