Clinics and hospitals in Russian-occupied areas of Ukraine are operating without staff, power and medicines, with supplies redirected to the Russian military, according to accounts from medical workers and residents.
Earlier this summer, the corridors of the district hospital in Hola Prystan, a city in the Russian-occupied Kherson region, were quiet and often plunged into darkness during power cuts lasting hours. Much of the hospital's equipment and supplies had been stolen and redirected to the military, and many experienced staff had left.
“They [the Russian forces] even took some of the furniture,” says Natalia Sergeevna, who worked as a nurse there for more than two decades before escaping to Ukrainian-held territory in July. She says her hospital was relatively lucky, with others in occupied territories repurposed for military use or closed down.
Desperate conditions in occupied regions
Despite the bare-bones infrastructure, people still came to the hospital, says Sergeevna, often making difficult journeys across the mine-infested landscape of occupied Kherson. “They came with injuries and wounds; they came looking for oncologists or endocrinologists or palliative care. Women still came with pregnancies,” she says, “but every day it was getting harder to help them.”
In June, the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine said conditions in Oleshky and Hola Prystan were becoming desperate, with thousands of people left without food, water and medicines. It said ambulances had stopped coming to people's homes, with medical assistance only available for the most urgent cases and patients dying during attempted evacuations.
Sergeevna says she stayed in hope of liberation, but by the summer things had become unbearable. “There is almost no available support to do any kind of surgeries; even basic procedures like removing polyps aren't possible.” She describes a case this year where a C-section led to uterine bleeding, but no blood was available for transfusion because supplies had been sent to Russian soldiers.
Forced passportisation blocks care
Another obstacle is the forced “passportisation” of the population, with medical services refused to people without a Russian compulsory health insurance policy, which requires a Russian passport. “They treat you very badly if you are Ukrainian. We have no rights, they tell us to our face, 'you're a nobody',” says Marina*, who lives in a town occupied by Russian forces.
Marina says she had to be taken to hospital in 2023 after complications during pregnancy and early labour. “The baby was coming with the backside down, and I needed an emergency C-section. I was in a lot of pain,” she says. “But it was 11.30pm, and the curfew was in place. We tried getting out, but they shot at us.”
She spent the night cared for by her husband and a neighbour, then rushed to the clinic when the curfew lifted. “When we got there, there was no obstetrician, no qualified staff for pregnancy, no one to help. I eventually had a C-section with the help of my neighbour, who was a nurse, and thankfully my baby and I survived.” She adds that without tests, medical professionals or an ultrasound machine, she had no way of diagnosing the complication.
No anaesthesia, no power, no support
In another case from earlier this year, Sergeevna says colleagues treated a patient with endometriosis without anaesthesia. “She was bleeding when she came to the hospital. So there was no anaesthesia, not even power. And the nurse at the time used the torch on her phone to do the procedure because there was no other option.”
Accurate figures are not available, but organisations monitoring the region detect an anecdotal rise in maternal and child mortalities and long-term health problems, as well as difficulties accessing contraceptives and abortion. Sergeevna says the situation is particularly acute for women, who face mental health issues from lack of care and trauma, including rape and sex slavery.
She describes an 18-year-old who came with the letter “Z” cut into her torso with a blade. While inspecting the wound, Sergeevna discovered the girl had been raped. “But that was not why she came to us; she was too ashamed to admit that. She came only because she couldn't tolerate the wound any more because of swelling and inflammation.” With few doctors and depleting resources, Sergeevna's team stitched her up, but “there was nothing else we could do for her. There were no resources to check her for STDs or provide her with contraceptives. We did not even have any way to provide psychological support.”
* Name has been changed.
