Volunteer doctors providing critical care near Ukraine war front lines

In a cramped municipal building in this former front-line village, its front window boarded up with plywood, a team of volunteer specialist doctors have set up a mobile clinic.

For the residents, it’s a lifeline. Even before Russia’s war, access to specialist medical help was available only to those who could get to the city, but the village near the eastern Ukrainian city of Sloviansk did have a primary care doctor.

Now, with the village health clinic damaged by the war, its residents have been left with little access to health care, and in particular to specialist care.

“There is no doctor. We are without a doctor. They left us alone,” wept Mariia Hrebenko, 79, as a doctor took her blood pressure and tried to calm her, gently patting her hand. “No one is helping us.”

The limited availability of health care has led to an exacerbation of existing illnesses that could be easily treated with regular medical attention, said Bohdan Avramenko, a 27year-old cardiologist who is the medical coordinator of FRIDA Ukraine, a Ukrainian-Israeli medical aid organization.