Turf wars, thieves and disaster tourists: Life at a Canadian field clinic on Poland-Ukraine border

Galina Bunesky sat quietly in a chair as Canadian physician Daniel Kollek listened to her heart. Her daughter and two grandchildren watched anxiously nearby.

"She was feeling sick and dizzy," said Bunesky's daughter, Marina Petrova.

The family had travelled 770 kilometres from Kropyvnytskyi, in central Ukraine, to the Korczowa-Krakovets border crossing between western Ukraine and Poland. It's an 11-hour trip by bus on a good day — and this was hardly a good day.

They waited inside a large, white tent on the Ukrainian side of the border, packed with hundreds of people fleeing the war by bus or car.

Inside was a field clinic staffed by volunteers with Canadian Medical Assistance Teams (CMAT), a disaster relief organization set up in 2005 in the wake of the deadly Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami that devastated parts of Indonesia, Thailand, Sri Lanka and India.

"She is very tired after such a long way and all these difficulties, and she has very high blood pressure," said Ukrainian-Canadian translator Natalya Halych. "That is why they had to ask for some help."

Bunesky left the clinic soon after with some blood pressure medication and advice to see a doctor once she got to Poland.

"Thank you very much, it was a very nice surprise. I'm touched with the care I received," she said in Ukrainian as she walked away with her family.

CMAT has a roster of 1,000 doctors, nurses, paramedics and psychologists who volunteer their time and pay their own way to help in disaster zones around the world.

This is Kollek's first deployment, but the emergency room physician, who is Jewish, says it's a personal one for him.

"My family fled Europe in World War II, and those who got out, got out — and those who didn't get out, nobody came to help," said Kollek, who is usually based in Burlington, Ont., west of Toronto.

He's part of a 15-person CMAT team deployed to help refugees trying to escape the war in Ukraine. Last Saturday, he was working with paramedic Scott Haig from Vancouver and registered nurse Teresa Berdusco from Edmonton. CBC News spent five days with the group as they got the clinic up and running.

On the first full day, the team saw a steady stream of people looking for help.

"They're all exhausted. They're all cold, hungry, tired," Berdusco said. "Their blood pressure is high. My blood pressure would be raised if I lost my home and had to move to a new country."'