Kyiv, Ukraine. The National Cancer Institute in kyiv was busier than usual after the hit of a Russian missile The largest children’s hospital in Ukraine this week, forcing the evacuation of dozens of its young patients battling cancer.
Russia’s heaviest bombing of the Ukrainian capital in four months severely damaged the Okhmatdyt children’s hospital on Monday, terrifying families and severely affecting their children already battling life-threatening illnesses.
Now, some families are faced with the dilemma of where to continue their children’s treatment.
Oksana Halak learned of her 2-year-old son Dmytro’s diagnosis of acute lymphoblastic leukemia in early June. She immediately decided to take him to Okhmatdyt, “because it is one of the best hospitals in Europe.”
She and Dmytro were at the hospital for treatment when sirens sounded throughout the city. They couldn’t run to the shelter because the child was hooked up to an IV. “It’s vitally important not to disrupt these IVs,” Halak said.
After the first explosions, nurses helped move them to another windowless room, which was safer.
“We felt a powerful shock wave. We felt the room shake and the lights go out,” she recalled. “We understood it was nearby, but we didn’t think it was in Okhmatdyt.”
Shortly after they were evacuated to the National Cancer Institute and now Dmytro is one of the 31 patients who, in the midst of a difficult fight against cancer, have to adapt to a new hospital. With his arrival, the number of children receiving cancer treatment has doubled.
Dmytro and the other patients were offered evacuation to hospitals abroad, and Halak wants their further treatment to take place in Germany.
“We understand that with our situation we cannot receive the help we should and we are forced to request evacuation abroad,” he said.
Other hospitals in the city taking in children for treatment faced a similar overcrowding situation following the closure of Okhmatdyt, where hundreds of children were being treated at the time of the attack.
“The destroyed Ojmatdyt is the pain of the entire nation,” said the general director of the National Cancer Institute, Olena Yefimenko.
Almost immediately after the attack, messages began circulating on social media to raise funds for the hospital’s restoration. Many parents whose children were treated there wrote messages of gratitude, saying that their children survived thanks to the hospital’s care despite difficult diagnoses. In just three days, Ukrainians and private companies raised more than $7.3 million through the national fundraising platform UNITED24.
The reconstruction works of the hospital are already underway. Okhmatdyt doctors balance their tasks of treating their young evacuated patients while working to reopen the children’s hospital. But even with resources and determination, that can take months.
Still, Yuliia Vasylenko has already decided that her 11-year-old son Denys will remain in kyiv for cancer treatment.
On the day of the attack, the boy, diagnosed with multiple spinal cord tumors, was due to begin chemotherapy. The strike delayed her treatment indefinitely and Denys has to undergo additional examinations and tests, her mother said.
Denys was very scared during the strike, his mother said as she wheeled him around the National Cancer Institute.
“The last few days seemed like an eternity,” he said. Only now are they slowly recovering from the stress.
“If we go somewhere, with our diagnosis, we would have to do all the tests again from the beginning,” he said, adding that this could take three to four months.
“And we don’t know if we have that time,” he said.
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Associated Press writer Volodymyr Yurchuk contributed to this report.
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