Illustrated by Galochka Ch
“Then, in the basement, a boy was born. He was named Fedir,” says obstetrician-gynecologist Kyrylo Ventskivskyi, and his voice softens when he says the newborn’s name. It was the first time in Kyrylo’s 15-year practice when he delivered a baby in such conditions: in the basement of the Kyiv Perinatal Center during an air raid warning. He can’t remember the exact date when it happened. He explains that the first days of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine merged into one very long day.
It took health workers a couple of days to develop a clear algorithm for action in the new reality. The facility has two basements, and in the early days there were cases when doctors who were to assist in labor were in different shelters.
“Fedir was born and cried, the woman’s mother came in. Everyone was very happy that everything went well. And then I said that the child should be examined by a pediatrician, who was in another shelter,” adds Kyrylo. “That time, everyone was lucky. The birth went well, so the absence of a pediatrician was not crucial. But we could have been less lucky.”
Kyrylo also recalls that in the first days it was very difficult mentally: “We were not mentally ready for such a course of events, and, most importantly, our patients were not ready for it either. Their state is already quite vulnerable. We had to provide them with medical care and somehow smooth out these psychological moments, because women first went down to the shelters, and then began to cry that they did not want and could not go downstairs several times per night to the basement with their things, and then go back to the hospital ward, it was difficult for them. We talked to them, tried to find an approach to each person.”
The doctor says that after the news about the shelling of the maternity hospital in Mariupol, the level of anxiety among the patients of the Perinatal Center increased. “This news shocked doctors and scared our patients,” adds Kyrylo.
Since the beginning of the full-scale invasion, most doctors at the Perinatal Center have not left the hospital: they work around the clock, seven days a week. Kyrylo Ventskivskyi is among them. During the 20 days of the war, he was at home twice and went out to the city twice to buy medicine and food for his grandparents and visit them. “Apart from that, we’re here all the time, with our patients,” he says.
Despite the coordination of doctors’ actions and their attempts to provide the women who give birth with the most comfortable and safe conditions, Kyrylo Ventskivskyi notes that these are still not the conditions in which children should be born.
“The basements of the Perinatal Center in Kyiv are just basements where there are no conditions for childbirth. We brought there a few beds, a good deal of chairs, because during air raid warnings people come to us even from the neighboring houses where there are no basements. We fetched a little of what was needed for work, created a supply of water, non-perishable food, medicines, brought lanterns and blankets. In the basement where we have a pediatric intensive care unit, we installed transport incubators and whatever is needed for work. However, it’s still just basements, where not even everything necessary is put, but only the most necessary.”
Kyrylo Ventskivskyi explains that the optimal temperature in the delivery room is 26 degrees centigrade, and that there should be no drafts. Even with heaters, the temperature in the basement is much lower. It is also impossible to heat diapers in the basement, which are used to wipe newborns and cover them when they are placed on their mother’s breast. “Not to mention asepsis and antiseptics. It is a non-sterile room. The only thing we have are sterile instruments, which, as soon as we get them out of the airtight package, are no longer sterile,” says Kyrylo.
“Women should not give birth in such conditions! This is absolute nonsense! In the center of Europe, in the capital of a European country, in the 21st century…” he concludes.
Translated by Yurii Vitiak
