Donations and help for Ukraine Bonn gynaecology professor sends seven euro pallets of medicine to Kiev

Bonn · Gynaecology professor Alexander Mustea has launched a relief programme for Ukrainian clinics. He said that patients from Ukraine are already being treated at the University Hospital - and that they are ready to take in more

 Gynaecology professor Alexander Mustea has launched a relief programme for Ukrainian clinics.

Gynaecology professor Alexander Mustea has launched a relief programme for Ukrainian clinics.

Foto: Benjamin Westhoff

The war misery of the Ukrainian population has Bonn gynaecology professor Alexander Mustea concerned. Together with colleagues from the University Hospital and, among others, a friend from Russia, the Moldovan-born professor sent seven Euro pallets with medicines for several clinics on their way at the end of the week. The UKB is also prepared to accept Ukrainian patients, Mustea reports in an interview with Martin Wein.

On Thursday night, a maternity clinic in the Ukrainian port city of Mariupol was shelled several times. As a gynaecologist, what goes through your mind when you hear this news?

Alexander Mustea: The news is difficult to assess. Each side says something different. War is a dirty business. But places like hospitals should be protected at all costs. Whoever attacks them deliberately accepts civilian casualties, even if the buildings are supposedly empty.

Together with several colleagues, you launched an aid delivery on Thursday. Who came up with the idea?

Mustea: Right at the beginning of the fighting, I spoke to my Russian friend Egor Kuru on the phone. He works as an architect in Bonn. We both have friends and professional contacts in Ukraine. It was unbearable for us to simply stand by and watch the events. That's why we decided to do something together. We went to a pharmacy and bought medicines. Later, I asked the UKB chief pharmacist Dr. Ingo Schulze if we could store the boxes with him. In turn, the Chairman of the Board, Professor Wolfgang Holzgreve, and the Senior Surgeon, Dr Hanno Mathaei, heard about this. All of them got involved. And so our commitment spread further and further. A few boxes eventually turned into seven Euro pallets of medicines. And the forwarding agent Viktor Harms takes care of the transport.

How will the medicines get to the hospitals?

Mustea: We have contact with an architectural firm from Kiev. Of course, they don't have any work at the moment and are taking over the logistics instead. They take over the pallets at the border and bring them to the hospitals. On the way back, they pick up relatives of one of our employees in Kiev who cannot travel alone. We will then pick them up at the Ukrainian border in Poland.

How do you get the relief supplies into the country in the first place?

Mustea: There are two large warehouses in Poland where the relief goods are collected and packed for their destination. We have prepared a detailed list of contents for delivery. The UKB board has also drawn up a letter stating that the goods are medical supplies. Then customs control is quicker. Vehicles with Ukrainian licence plates then come to the camps and pick up everything.

What have you sent and for whom are the things intended?

Mustea: First and foremost, we have procured things like antibiotics, painkillers, blood thinners and preparations for anaesthesia, which are necessary for first aid. In addition to two hospitals in Kiev and Lviv, some of the items will go to the Kyiv City Children's Clinical Hospital. The hospitals sent us a concrete list of what they need. There was already cooperation here before. A special refrigerated package of medicines is for a five-year-old girl who has cancer. The child now needs these very expensive medicines so that she can then be evacuated from Ukraine.

Do you and the UKB have contact with the clinics? What is the situation there?

Mustea: Several of my colleagues in my home country Moldova have close contacts in Kiev. All the clinics there are overcrowded. There is little to eat, there is a lack of medication, especially painkillers. Everyone there is constantly on the phone to organise something.

Can you actually maintain a regular medical operation under such circumstances?

Mustea: You have to adapt. I experienced something similar in 1992 when the war escalated in Transnistria. At that time, I worked as an operating theatre nurse during my studies. For two months, buses brought wounded people every day. Sometimes ten, sometimes 20 wounded people with bullet wounds came at the same time. We had practically no medicines or sterile gloves. We had to improvise. It's the same in Ukraine now.

Do these days bring back personal memories of that time for you?

Mustea: Yes, it is all very present in my mind at the moment.

The Republic of Moldova lies to the southwest of Ukraine. What is the situation there? What are you witnessing?

Mustea: My brother runs the urology clinic in the capital Chisinau. There, too, they are making concrete preparations for evacuations from Ukraine. If the port city of Odessa is bombed, all the sick people from there are to be brought to Chisinau. Medicines and bandages are being collected for this purpose. Beds have already been set up in the basement of the clinic. Cancer patients are a big problem. There are already over 100,000 refugees in Moldova. Many of them need their chemotherapy. Now medicines are already running short there too.

But safety is not at risk?

Mustea: The situation is very tense. Many traded with Ukraine or Russia. All that is lying fallow now. My parents say the shelves in the supermarkets are pretty empty. That's why people are stockpiling now if possible. There is also the fear that the Russians could turn off the gas tap again, as they did during the Transnistrian war. Moreover, no one can rule out that the Russians will not use Transnistria, like the Donbass in Ukraine, as a pretext for war.

Does this economic proximity of Ukraine to Russia also explain why medicines and consumables are becoming scarce so quickly?

Mustea: Yes. In the past, almost all medical supplies were bought in Russia. Generic drugs are much cheaper there than from Western European manufacturers. Of course, this source has dried up now.

In Bonn, some patients from Ukraine are also treated at the UKB. Are they specially cared for?

Mustea: Yes, they also receive socio-psychological care. At the beginning of the year, I myself had a patient from Ukraine in the clinic. She used to be a European champion in artistic gymnastics, but unfortunately she got cancer. I have operated on her several times. Unfortunately, the family flew back to Kiev just before the war started. Otherwise they could have stayed here. We have spoken on the phone and are in contact. In the meantime they are near the Polish border.

Is the UKB considering taking in evacuated patients from the war zones?

Mustea: We are prepared to do so. Professor Holzgreve has already organised everything necessary. We can take in evacuated patients from Ukraine at any time.

You have two children. What do you tell them about the war?

Mustea: I find it almost impossible to explain what is happening. Of course, my children hear that my phone rings so many times a day that by 4 p.m. the battery is empty. I have used a few days of holiday to organise transport. They have also heard that my brother has taken in three refugee women with children in Chisinau. Now they are mainly worried about their beloved grandparents. It was good that a historian was in their Bonn school and talked about the background.

(Original text: Martin Wein; Translation: Mareike Graepel)
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