Life as a doctor in a shelled area in Ukraine
Dr. med. Oksana Zhurbij
Physician
My profile
I am living as a doctor in the shelled and blockaded Donetsk: In the first February days shelling of the area where I live began. Insulin, antibiotics, antipyretics, antihypertensive, anticonvulsants became scarce and very expensive.
It is very, very scary, when you hear the shot and then the packet’s whistle and then - explosion. If an explosion is far - 500 meters is far - you can hear just sharp sounds and you can continue doing your thing. If your windows shakes - you should go to the hallway.
If the whole house shakes - you must run to the hallway, lie on the floor and wish that the next packet will not come to you.
Every day. Every night. At every moment the shell can fly to your home and destroyed it, kill you or your family.
After such a night you go to work. A shell can fly on the bus or to the bus stop. Your husband wishes you won't go to work but you get salary albeit 2 months delayed. Your family needs this money - it is the only income. Ukrainian government refused to pay pensions to people who had been working in Ukraine all their lives.
Ukrainian checkpoints do not miss to control the city trucks with food and medications. Insulin, antibiotics, antipyretics, antihypertensive, anticonvulsants became scarce and very expensive.
After the doctor’s appointments I go on home visits. The air is abuzz with gunfire and explosions. I walk past five-storey buildings in which glass is about to fall out. Scary.
One day, the bus came directly under firing. Between the two explosions I could leap out and fall under the garage wall. Before the next explosion, I managed to go down into the cellar of the nearby house. I stood there, pressed against the wall and could only think of the fact that the shells explode close to where my home is. And that my husband and son were there. As soon as the shelling ended I ran home. We took all our animals (our doggy, two zebra finches, budgie, three chinchillas (one was only a few days) and moved into my mother's place to a more quiet area. More quiet area means that the buildings are not shaking from the explosions there.
We waited for the announced February 15 truce. These two weeks especially the last days before the February 15 were very scary. The city was trembling from explosions. The factory where my son works as veterinary doctor (in the factory zoo) was shelled. My son has outlasted shelling in the cellar and then bandaged the wounded at the entrance of the factory. At the same time, in the morning, a bus station was shelled, two drivers and several passengers were killed.
Finally, we have lived to silence. Sometimes the shellings begin again but they are weaker.
Products are very grew and they became less. Medications are still scarce. Ukraine blocks Donetsk and we often remember the blockade of Leningrad. Ukrainians tell us that we deserved shelling and blockade because we voted at a referendum and expressed our opinion. All this is happening in the 21st century, in a country that calls itself democratic and whose leaders claim that they are Europeans.
According to the UN about 5,000 civilians were killed during the war in the Donbass. In fact, that number is 10 times more.
The President of Ukraine said about the inhabitants of Donetsk: "Their children will sit in cellars." The Ukrainian government is trying to implement a program of their President.
Earth, Europe, Ukraine, Donbass, 21st Century.
Article last time updated on 06.03.2015.