Short Wave - Voices From A Ukrainian Hospital Damaged By Russian Attacks

Episode Date: April 13, 2022

In the northern Ukrainian city of Chernihiv at least half a dozen hospitals have been damaged by Russian attacks. The Emergency Department of City Hospital No. 2, located on the ground floor, was instantly destroyed. In addition, the shock wave shattered windows across all nine floors of the building, showering everything with broken glass. Correspondent Ari Daniel talks to Emily about the attack and brings Short Wave the voices of three people who were there for the attack and the aftermath.Feel free to e-mail Short Wave with your story suggestions at [e-mail] pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

You're listening to Shortwave from NPR. Hey, everybody. Emily Kwong here. We are welcoming back today, Science Desk reporter Ari Daniel, who is looking at the health impacts of the war in Ukraine on Ukrainians. Hey, Ari. Hi, Emily. Good to be here. We're so glad you're back. Last week, we talked to you about how the war was undermining tuberculosis treatment.

Yes, that's right. And today, my story that I'm going to share with you is about three health care professionals. in the northern city of Chernegev, who describe an attack on one of the hospitals there, and they kind of triangulate that attack through their different perspectives. This account is just one of lots of examples of attacks on health infrastructure in Ukraine. The regions of Kiev, Lahansk, Kharkiv, Mariupil, and elsewhere have all been hit really hard. from the start of the war through April 12th, when you and I are talking, Emily, the World Health Organization has reported 119 separate assaults on Ukrainian health facilities. And today we're going to take a look at one of them.

Today on the show, we have the story of a sunny day in mid-March. The sky was blue. It felt like spring. Then the attack began on City Hospital number two in Chernigov, Ukraine. doctors tell us what it was like and what's going on now. You're listening to Shorewave, the Daily Science podcast from NPR. On March 16th, multiple shells exploded near City Hospital number two. One detonated inside.

Fladislav Kuhar was there. He's the hospital director and a surgeon. That was one of the first spring days. The sky was cloudless. It was cold, yes. but the sky was so blue, these explosions, it all seemed so unreal, we realized that we were the target. The emergency department was instantly destroyed.

The shockwave shattered windows across all nine floors, showering everything with broken glass, beds spun, doors sailed down hallways. It was like an apocalypse. There was white fog of cement and dust in the building, in the hallways and rooms. There was alarm sounding, the screams of patients, the medical personnel. Like a photograph seared into his memory, Kuhar remembers a girl crying in the hallway. He raced to the operating rooms. His colleagues were still alive.

Next, he ran to what little remained of the emergency department. We were trying to find all the wounded to prioritize them, to render them necessary aids such as sedatives. Within an hour of the attack, Tatiana Lebedeyeva stepped into the shell that was City Hospital number two. It was very, very difficult emotional moment. Lebedeva is deputy director of the Chernege Health Department, and it's become her job to document the assaults on health facilities. Her daughter, based outside of Ukraine, is interpreting for her and gets upset when she hears her mother describe what happened that day.

Because we... In our city, I'm sorry. My job required me to drive around the city and check every hospital, and I was there after that happened. The scene was overwhelming. This place of heel. she says, had been so beautiful. In this hospital, we have more than 300 doctors of more than 30 specializations.

In seconds, all that was gone, and they feared a further attack. The decision was taken very quickly to move all the patients who were able to walk, to move them to the underground floors. Those who'd been recovering post-op were brought into the hallways where it was safer. was safer. Everyone was very scared, the patients. Everything that has been done to help them to live their life longer is being destroyed in seconds or minutes. And it's such a pain in your heart and hopelessness in your soul. This is what Tatiana Lebedeyeva had come to document, the latest in a string of attacks on health infrastructure, verification of possible war crimes.

This was the city's sixth hospital damage report. We need to have the evidence that this happened. This is a breach of all military conventions. The hospital staff repaired the buildings the best they could. It took four days to cover the windows with plywood and tarps. The hospital contracted to the ground floor, transforming into an emergency triage center. Director of Vladislav Kuhar.

There was no alternative. We were there to help under any circumstances. That's what we did. That's what we had to do. Fate has made this choice for us. More than half of Chernegev's population has fled, but numerous medical personnel have stayed behind to help at city hospital number two. Like Alexander Ryshenko, in the before times,

he was a pediatric surgeon elsewhere in Chernegev. One person told me he has hands that are, capable of big miracles. But once the war broke out, Ryshenko became a full-time volunteer trauma surgeon. As we're speaking, explosions start going off in the background. Right now about my head is some artillery bombing, the sound you could hear.

Rishenko tends the wounds caused by explosions like these. Often he's extracting shrapnel and bullets from the bodies of his patients. His days have followed a cycle, pinned to the sounds of fresh bombs. He says when the explosions pause, staff, hold up in the basement, stream out of the hospital with gurneys and tourniquets, ferrying new patients back inside where the triage begins anew. You need to understand whom you should help first, whom you should help second turn,

and whom there is no sense to help anymore. And that's part of this new reality. Ryshenko and the other surgeons do the best they can, running their operating equipment on generators, but fuel is scarce. In the night, the temperature was minus, so you could imagine what are the conditions in the hospital without windows. Within Chernegev's city limits, all seven municipal hospitals are damaged, and only three remain partially open. And while other parts of Ukraine have been spared, Chernigiv isn't alone. Health infrastructure in the regions of Kiev, Lahansk, Kharkiv, Marayupo, and elsewhere, have all been hit hard. As for Vladislav Kuhar, the director of City Hospital No. 2, he actually says he's filled with gratitude

for those who helped repair the hospital and for his colleagues who've stayed to help others heal. It demands more effort these days, but the patients get better. They leave the hospital and they get their health back. It brings us joy. It brings us pride. And it's the greatest honor in this situation. At this point in our interview, Kuhar politely tells me he must get going. He has patients who need him.

Wow. Ari, thank you for bringing us these voices, the voices of these health care providers who are in the middle of this war. Tell us a little bit about how you gathered these voices, how you had these conversations, and what is it like to report on war from a distance? Yeah, I mean, I think reporting on war and conflict is tough generally, Emily, you know, whether you're on the ground or at a distance. But this story was especially hard to do from afar. I was trying to find these folks to interview, and I had to deal with limited phone. in internet connectivity. I didn't know when there was a signal or not. I didn't know why my call wasn't going through. There were scheduling conflicts, language barriers, and from time to time,

the hospital administration said that certain people just couldn't talk to me. So tracking down the individuals to interview for this story was difficult, especially Dr. Cuhar, who we hear from first in the piece and last, who was in the hospital when the attack happened. I spent days trying to find someone who could provide that eyewitness account, which I felt was so crucial to the telling of this particular story. Right. Yes, Dr. Kuhar. And I heard also the voices of several interpreters throughout the piece. What was it like to work with them? Because presumably they're Ukrainian too. Yes, the interpreters I work with are all Ukrainian and speak Ukrainian. And we were all tethered together through Zoom or WhatsApp. And everything just felt so precarious through these phone connections because I wasn't sure if the line was going to drop at any moment. So I really was leaning in and listening hard.

And there was something about that tenuousness that actually made me feel closer to the story and the people I was talking to. there were a couple moments where the interpreters, as you heard in the piece, were deeply moved by what they were hearing. And that made me, as the reporter, feel moved as well. You know, like if for a moment I felt as though through this kind of flimsy connection, I could lock eyes with this individual on the other end and really listen to the depth of what they'd seen and experienced. Right. It sounds almost like stolen time, just a moment of presence. Yeah. It's all, it's all we needed was just a moment. It was, you know, just those, just those few minutes of their time, you know, really felt like a gift. Lastly, your initial reporting that you did for this piece took place a couple of weeks ago. What is the latest from Chernegev? So since I reported this story, the Russians have pulled out of Ternigov, and they're mobilizing in the east now.

So in Chernegev, for now, things have gotten a touch better in terms of access and supplies. It's still not great, but it's better than it was. Thank you so much for coming on the show. Thank you so much for having me. Rebecca Davis edited the radio story, which was produced by Sean Saldania and Shelby Hawken. And Giselle Grayson and Thomas Liu edited and produced this story for Shorewave. Gisal Grayson is our senior supervising editor. Neil Carruth is our senior director of On Demand News Programming, and Anya Grunman is our senior vice president of programming.

Thanks for listening to Shortwave, The Daily Science Podcast from NPR.