EIT Health Germany Series 5: How Can We Help With Medical Aid in Ukraine?
When the war in Ukraine began, Marta Kaczmarek welcomed one of the refugee families to her home. She then thought about how more could be done to help Ukrainians and started an initiative called EIT Health Ukraine Appeal.
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To organise a supply chain of medical equipment to Ukraine, EIT Health, a network of best-in-class health innovators backed by the EU, partnered with the Polish Medical Mission - a 22 years old Polish humanitarian organization that provides medical aid to the countries most in need in the world.
Every piece of medical equipment counts
When the war began, the Polish Medical Mission started providing help to refugees on the Polish-Ukranian border, providing them with various programs such as child protection in Poland. They are now starting with a vaccination program against tetanus in Ukraine. Tetanus is a life-threatening bacterial infection that causes severe muscle spasms and sometimes death. Vaccination is usually a part of immunization programs in childhood but has now been disrupted by the war. “It is also recommended to be given to adults every 10 years since the infection can lead to complications such as the need for amputation,” explains Ewa Piekarska, President of the Board, Head of the Development Aid Program, Polish Medical Mission.
Through the Ukraine Appeal, EIT Health provides Polish Medical Mission with various medical supplies. Everything counts: from bandages and devices to things like medical beds. “It’s really difficult to describe the scale of the needs, which also depend on the level of health center. A hospital might need surgical tools, and rescue emergency equipment such as cardiac monitors, theater tables, and fetal lamps. These are all distributed or used in tents in the field hospitals,” Ewa Piekarska elaborates.
Since 1999, the Polish Medical Mission Association has been helping victims of wars, catastrophes and natural disasters. Their volunteers include doctors, paramedics, nurses, rehabilitators, as well as psychologists and medical analysts. At the moment 30 people are involved in helping Ukraine.
Can you help?
EIT Health Ukraine appeal is ongoing, so if you’re a medical device manufacturer or have the ability to donate medical equipment, please get in touch with EIT Health.
While EIT Health comprises of over 150 partners from the industry, policy and academia, everyone’s contribution is welcome. “We received a lot of glucometers, first aid kits, dressings, soil bags, and some medical equipment even in a smaller amounts. We now managed to collect financial donations to enable the purchase of 15.000 doses of tetanus vaccines for the Polish Medical Mission to distribute,” mentions Marta Kaczmarek, Coordinator of the EIT Health Ukraine Appeal.
“What is always very important in delivering medical humanitarian aid; you shouldn't forget about these very sensitive groups of people like mothers, like children, elderly people, people with disabilities and we are also doing some projects for disabled people from Ukraine inside Poland. We will also do some training exercises and a rehabilitation center might be established in Ukraine. Also, you shouldn't forget about the patients with chronic diseases. And sometimes as we observed, the people, the refugees come in without a history of their treatment, without any information for which disease they suffer, what kinds of medicines they should be given.
And so they have to be under control here in Poland. And we know that it's already implemented it works better or worse, but it works actually. But I think that a... Very challenge as far as Polish NGO right now, it's still that we have to find some solutions, how as Polish Medical Mission we can buy drugs legally and transport them because it's not so obvious in the Polish law system.
I know the minister of health is going to change the resolution and unfortunately, if they will not accept our proposal to changes we'll be excluded from... . As NGO we will be excluded from those who can transfer medications, for example. Which is a very, a huge and very important part of our activities,” says Ewa Piekarska.
