Eager healthcare heroes can only watch agonizing war

By TERRY LYNAM //

The human suffering and misery unfolding every day in Ukraine is agonizing to watch for anyone with a human conscience – but its heart-wrenching, and frustrating, for healthcare providers watching from afar in the United States and elsewhere.

At Northwell Health, New York State’s largest healthcare provider, many of the nearly 19,000 nurses, 4,900 doctors and other staffers have asked about volunteering.

“I get emails or phone calls every other hour from someone willing to help,” said Eric Cioe-Peña, an emergency medicine specialist who directs Northwell’s Center for Global Health.

The center organizes and funds medical missions and other outreach efforts to countries impacted by natural disasters such as earthquakes and hurricanes, as well as those experiencing refugee crises for numerous reasons.

Terry Lynam: Agonizing.

At this stage of the Ukraine war, there are too many logistical challenges to getting Northwell healthcare volunteers officially credentialed, properly assigned to where they can do the most good and safely transported to that location.

The biggest need now, according to Peña, is medical supplies to treat the rapidly growing number of victims of Russia’s relentless bombing of hospitals, shelters, apartment buildings and other residential areas where civilians are trying to take cover.

In coordination with the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense and the European nation’s Ministry of Health, Northwell shipped 28 pallets to Warsaw, Poland, on March 4, en route to the western Ukrainian city of Lviv; the pallets carried some 18,000 pounds of medical supplies.

According to Northwell Chief Procurement Officer Phyllis McCready, the health system – in collaboration with its suppliers – is already preparing a second medical shipment.

Meanwhile, financial help has also been forthcoming. As of March 23, Northwell employees had contributed nearly $200,000 in cash donations to the health system’s Ukraine Relief Fund – the most money the health system has ever raised for emergency response efforts.

Eric Cioe-Peña: Supplies are the demand.

The employee donations will be matched by Northwell, which will allocate some of the funds to relief efforts in other countries where armed conflicts have displaced millions, including Syria, Yemen and Somalia.

Peña said he expects Northwell will be prepared to send a contingent of doctors, nurses and other volunteers to eastern Europe in the coming months. Exactly when and where depends on whether Ukrainian and Russian negotiators can reach a ceasefire or other agreements that stop the bombing or otherwise open humanitarian corridors out of devastated cities and towns.

Clinicians from Doctors Without Borders and other relief agencies are already on the ground in Ukraine and in neighboring countries such as Poland, Romania, Moldova, Hungary and Slovakia, where millions of Ukrainian refugees have already fled. The United Nations estimates that another 6.5 million Ukrainians have been displaced within Ukraine’s borders, meaning that about 10 million people – roughly 25 percent of the country’s population – have fled their homes.

“Forty-five percent of the refugees are children,” Peña noted. “The rest are mostly women and elderly men, many of whom are medically fragile with chronic medical needs.”

Help on the way: Northwell Health President and CEO Michael Dowling and friends ship some $160,000 worth of medical supplies to war-torn Ukraine.

Of particular concern is the health of older Ukrainians who were too weak to make the arduous journey out of the country, not to mention the fate of the Ukrainian soldiers and civilians who took up arms to defend their homeland.

While mass casualties among outnumbered Ukrainian soldiers is troubling enough, the toll on civilians is truly horrifying to clinicians. As of March 21, the U.N. estimated that at least 953 Ukrainian civilians – including 78 children – had been killed, and another 1,557 wounded.

According to Peña, this is “Putin’s playbook in modern warfare,” which largely involves “targeting healthcare workers and hospitals as a means of terrorizing and demoralizing the population.”

And around the world, healthcare professionals can only watch, and wait.

Terry Lynam is a communications consultant and former senior vice president/chief public relations officer for Northwell Health.