Booby traps in children’s toys
Oleksandr Yatsyna tries to maintain his composure as he waits to go into the operating theatre in Kyiv. ‘‘First we had the catastrophic injuries from the bombs, then the shooting, next the mines scattered along the roads, but worst of all are the stuffed toys filled with explosives. They are targeting families. Be in no doubt, the Russians are determined to kill our civilians and children too.’’
The partly British-trained surgeon is at the forefront of Ukraine’s medical response to President Vladimir Putin’s invasion. Yatsyna, 39, sleeps and eats in the hospital to remain near his patients.
‘‘The Russians want to make the situation as unstable for us as possible, economically and mentally, to twist our minds,’’ he explains. ‘‘They want to terrify us with their barbarity but they don’t understand the more they try to frighten the people the braver they become. The stories I hear will haunt me for ever.’’
A urologist by training, Yatsyna has had to learn fast. He cannot divulge his hospital in Kyiv in case it is targeted. ‘‘When they hit the maternity facility in Mariupol I couldn’t believe it, that was my turning point. Now I know they will attack any of us. Doctors and vulnerable patients, unable to flee, are prime targets.’’
Most of his colleagues, he says, have insisted on remaining to help; others have returned from working in hospitals abroad. ‘‘A few doctors went to fight, many sent their young children to safety and stayed on, including the cleaners, porters, chefs and nurses. We have enough volunteers. The shifts now are three or four days long. Many don’t go home as their flats have been destroyed or they have no transport and it is too dangerous to walk or cycle.’’
When the first missiles exploded in Kyiv, the staff moved everyone down to the basement. ‘‘Now we have a tolerance for this. The anti-missile system is working, we believe in our army as they are achieving results and we have slowly started coming back to the ground floor. We cannot live like rats underground for ever.’’
The first few weeks of war, he
says, went by in a blur. ‘‘It was horrendous. I can’t distinguish between the operations, bodies after bodies. When it is an entire family you are trying to save, that is the worst: sisters, brothers, grandparents. [The Russians] must have been given orders to do this, they can’t mistake these children for soldiers. There are so many violations we have seen as doctors. We hardly had time to drink a cup of coffee or sterilise the instruments between operations.’’
After more than 40 days, he says, they are still not inured to the horrendous injuries they are witnessing nor the amputations they perform.
The dedication of staff, he says, has been extraordinary. ‘‘We are learning fast but we don’t have all the equipment, not even all the instruments we need for open surgery.’’ Their initial problem was the power cuts. ‘‘The electricity kept switching off, plunging us into darkness when we were in the middle of complex operations, turning off the monitoring machines.’’
So Yatsyna turned to the doctors he had worked with in Sheffield and London while in the UK a few years ago.
In London, he had met Dr Sara McNeillis, a consultant at University College London. She had contacted him at the beginning of the war, asking: ‘‘What can we do to help?’’
When Yatsyna tentatively asked whether she could try to find him a generator, she didn’t hesitate. Soon, with three other London-based consultants, she had sourced a generator which Yatsyna collected at the Polish border. Now staff have raised funds for a portable ultrasound machine.
Yatsyna explains. ‘‘I don’t want to sound greedy but we need more.’’
The city has emptied. ‘‘There are three times fewer people in Kyiv now. Those who remain are brave, they know what to do, they are now stress-tolerant, they are not hysterical. They only come to the hospital if they are badly injured.’’
Most of the children in his hospital have slowly been evacuated, along with those receiving cancer treatment before the war. ‘‘They were so stoic, noone complained.’’ The pandemic doesn’t register in conversations now. We used to be Covidobsessed, the talk was all of vaccine certificates and masks, but that hasn’t survived the bombing. Now people barely notice if they have it.’’
People talk of the Russian thieves and looters while they wait for their operations. ‘‘The Russian soldiers take everything from the buildings they destroy, stepping over the bodies. The stories are awful: coffee machines, furniture, computers.’’
Yatsyna says he is lucky. ‘‘They have only destroyed the windows of my flat.’’ He married his wife last August. ‘‘She left after two weeks of bombings to Lviv. She is a gynaecologist and is helping at the borders with the refugees: the newborn babies and pregnant mothers. I saw her when I went to collect the generator.’’
At their wedding, he says, they entertained 10 Russian friends from Moscow. ‘‘But they have been brainwashed now. They message me saying, ‘We will save you from nationalism, from the Nazis’. At the beginning, I replied, now I don’t read them. I think it will be hard for Russians and Ukrainians to mix after this for a long time.’’
Of course, his hospital would treat Russian soldiers, he says. ‘‘It’s my profession to do this. But if we treat them and they come back to fight us that will be terrible.’’
He refuses to arm himself. ‘‘I don’t want to fight. I am a doctor, I save lives. But I would protect my home if necessary.’’
Nurses keep interrupting our conversation with urgent questions. ‘‘I am sorry,’’ he says, ‘‘I have to go. Our country, our people, our hospitals and doctors were not ready for this. We have already suffered the pandemic and now a war that is beyond anyone’s imagination in the 21st century. I desperately hope it never happens to you but it is now happening in Europe, on your doorstep.’’ –