As Ukraine enters the fifth year of the full-scale invasion, health-care facilities in Chernihiv, Kherson, Odesa, Mykolaiv, and Sumy continue to operate under extreme pressure. To help meet the urgent medical needs, the WHO Country Office in Ukraine, with financial support from the European Union (EU) Directorate-General for Enlargement and Eastern Neighbourhood, recently delivered critical medical equipment worth US$800,000 to hospitals in these frontline regions. This equipment ensures that trauma patients receive timely and safe care and helps maintain essential health services.
The support included five electrosurgical units for hospitals in Kherson, Odesa, and Sumy; five anaesthesia stations equipped with patient monitors, integrated infusion, and syringe pumps for facilities in Chernihiv and Sumy; and twenty intensive care beds for a hospital in Mykolaiv. Each piece of equipment plays a vital role in saving lives: anaesthesia stations allow safe administration and monitoring of general anaesthesia, infusion and syringe pumps ensure precise dosing for critically ill patients, electrosurgical units enable highly accurate surgeries with minimal blood loss, and intensive care beds provide continuous monitoring and life support.
Dr Jarno Habicht, WHO Representative in Ukraine, emphasized the importance of this support: “This equipment is critical for hospitals on the frontline: it improves patient safety and enhances the quality of health-care services. Thanks to the European Union, we continue to support people living in frontline areas.”
The need for such equipment is particularly urgent in regions like Sumy, where ongoing shelling results in a high volume of patients requiring emergency surgical care. In Chernihiv, new anaesthesia stations are boosting safe surgical capacity, while in Mykolaiv, intensive care beds are supporting post-operative patients, stroke cases, and critically ill individuals, including internally displaced persons. Meanwhile, electrosurgical units in Odesa and Kherson are strengthening surgical services across multiple specialties.
Hennadiy Stukalo, head of the anaesthesiology department in Chernihiv, highlighted the dire situation: “Without such equipment, it is impossible to take care of patients requiring urgent surgical intervention. We are currently receiving a very high number of patients, so we need such life-saving equipment.”
Overall, the delivery of this medical equipment enhances both the safety and efficiency of life-saving care, ensures hospitals can maintain surgical capacity, reduces post-operative complications, and strengthens the long-term resilience of Ukraine’s health-care system amid ongoing conflict.
