Nearly 500 days since invasion, Ukraine’s trauma doctors aren’t slowing down

In the 16 months since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, trauma surgeons and the teams that work with them have been inundated.

Above a set of double doors, a digital screen flashes the words “attention” and “operation” in Ukrainian. 

Three male patients are being worked on in three surgical spaces all of varying sizes.

The doors to the rooms are all open, allowing for roughly a half dozen other health-care professionals to hurriedly move from one room to another as they’re called by name or beckoned by a sounding alarm on a piece of medical equipment.

Dr. Igor Lozhkin occupies the larger room where his patient can be heard snoring over the sound of running water. Speaking in English, the Ukrainian traumatologist explains the team is cleaning debris from a wound on the soldier’s lower leg.

A cement mixture will be used as a temporary fix for the fractured tibia until another surgery can be done. Bone will be taken from elsewhere in the patient’s body — possibly his pelvis — and used as a graft.

“It’s not a big injury, actually,” said Dr. Lozhkin, explaining they see much worse on a daily basis.

In the 16 months since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, trauma surgeons and the teams that work with them have been inundated. Soldiers come to this medical centre in the Kyiv region from the front lines after they have been stabilized.

“One surgery can go from 8 a.m. to 5 a.m.,” said Dr. Lozhkin, adding that the number of operations he performs depends on the severity of his patient’s injuries.