The snow appeared halfway through the road that we followed, a few days ago, from the Polish border to kyiv. In the context of the war in Ukraine, the winter which is now making health a priority concern of the government and the population.
At the peak of bombing in November, 50 % of the facilities providing and distributing electricity in the country had been put out of state. Ten million people are today deprived of electricity and several other million are faced, every day, with intermittent power cuts. Nearly 250,000 households no longer have access to gas to heat and eat. Large -scale bombings targeting civil energy installations represent the most massive attack that has been known on the health of populations since the Second World War.
Without electricity, hospitals are stopped: maternity incubators, blood banks freezers, intensive care units and operating rooms cannot work, and primary care services are dysfunctional.
toxic substances
Several countries, including France for its bilateral aid and the European Office of the World Health Organization (WHO) on behalf of the Member States of the Region, urgently deliver electricity generators to the Ukraine. The authorities of kyiv have just made the decision to assign them as a priority to hospitals, making the hospital the point of last resort for access to electricity.
The cold, with expected peaks of temperature of – 20 ° C, will hardly affect the daily life of millions of households living in poorly insulated buildings and in conditions which have become very difficult to access the fuel, to the facilities of heating and warm clothes.
The cold directly endangers the lives of patients and fragile people. This winter should be expected this winter of an increased impact of heart accidents, strokes of strokes, severe respiratory infections and care of care for many people with chronic diseases. In addition, the use of wood and coal heating in makeshift installations can expose to toxic substances children and people with chronic respiratory disorders.
Our teams and NGOs in the field tell us that there are no more health structures or functional pharmacies in the recently released territories.
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