Our teams continue to respond to the war in Ukraine. We currently have approximately 20 international and 350 Ukrainian staff working in response to the war across the country. They work as medical staff (surgeons, doctors, nurses); psychologists; logisticians and administrators. Here is how we are responding:

Medical evacuations: Our teams evacuate patients from hospitals close to the frontlines, including war-wounded patients, and refer them to hospitals in safer areas through a fleet of 18 ambulances operating across Ukraine. Some of the ambulances are equipped for intensive care support. Run by a team of paramedics, doctors, and drivers, the ambulances have referred over 20,000 patients since 2023.

Emergency services: In Kherson city, an MEDSF medical team supports surgical and trauma activities. Medical teams run triage and operating theatre activities and perform surgeries. Our staff also provide treatment during mass casualty events in the hospitals close to the frontline.

Support to hospitals: We send donations of medical supplies and hygiene kits to medical facilities, and provide training support for emergency responses, managing a high influx of war wounded, decontamination, trauma, early physical rehabilitation and mental health. Donations from MEDSF have also been used to restore hospitals damaged by shelling in Donetsk region, Kherson, and Dnipropetrovsk regions.

Mobile clinics: MEDSF mobile clinics provide basic healthcare services, psychological counselling and social services, sexual and reproductive health services, mental healthcare and health promotion. Through these mobile clinics, we also provide medicines for people with chronic illnesses such as hypertension, asthma, diabetes, heart disease and epilepsy. Severely unwell patients are referred to hospitals. Through our mobile clinics in the Kherson and Mykolaiv regions, we are now screening for tuberculosis.

Mental health: Our teams provide mental health support through mobile clinics in areas where it’s hard for patients to access healthcare, particularly in rural areas and shelters for people displaced by the war. In 2023, a dedicated centre for people experiencing war-related post-traumatic stress disorder was opened in Vinnytsia. There, we offer psychological sessions for patients and people in their support network. Our specialists provide them with techniques to help reduce and prevent worsening of symptoms, increase coping skills, improve interpersonal functionality, and decrease the consequences of traumatic stress.

Physiotherapy: MEDSF teams are supporting seriously injured post-surgery patients with specialised physiotherapy and post-operative care in Cherkasy region and Odesa in order to aid in their longer term recovery.  

MEDSF teams remained close to the frontline, delivering emergency medical treatment, while also expanding services in other regions to support long-term recovery, such as rehabilitation for trauma survivors, and mental health care.

As the war has evolved, we have adapted our response. In addition to providing essential trauma care in hospitals in Kherson, we ran mobile clinics and ambulance referrals in all regions along the frontline, which stretches for more than 1,000 kilometres. Our mobile teams screened for tuberculosis and offered treatment for chronic diseases, such as hypertension, mainly to elderly and vulnerable patients, many of whom had resorted to living in basements or shelters to escape the shelling. Our ambulances frequently responded in the aftermath of airstrikes, referring wounded patients to nearby hospitals.

In a shelter run by local organisations in Zernove, Kharkiv region, we offered psychological care to people who had moved from Russia and Russian-occupied regions of Ukraine. In Pavlohrad, our teams provided mental health and basic healthcare for people fleeing the encroaching fighting in Pokrovsk and Kurakhove, Donetsk region. However, in April, MEDSF’s office in Pokrovsk was destroyed by a missile. Five people were injured in the attack, including an MEDSF staff member.

We also increased our mental health activities in 2024. We focused on treating post-traumatic stress disorder at our dedicated centre in Vinnytsia, and established a professional and community network to deliver trauma care for displaced people. In 2024, we expanded our support to reach people who have endured prolonged exposure to traumatic experiences, helping them manage their symptoms.

In Cherkasy and Odesa, MSF’s rehabilitation services comprised physiotherapy, mental health care and nursing support for people who have recently had trauma surgery, including amputations.  

We continued to send professionals and medical supplies to hospitals near the frontline to provide training and resources for mass-casualty influxes.