Ukraine: Attack on Kyiv Children’s Hospital Okhmatdyt – Ukraine

“It is unacceptable that patients cannot feel safe.”

New York/Kyiv, July 8, 2024— In one of the largest missile attacks in Ukraine, the country’s largest children’s hospital, the Okhmatdyt Children’s Hospital, was hit today, resulting in deaths and injuries.

Children with serious illnesses, some of whom require life support, are waiting to be evacuated or readmitted in other parts of the Okhmatdyt Children’s Hospital near the destroyed building in Kyiv, according to the Ukrainian Health Minister. The children’s dialysis department was particularly badly damaged.

“Our teams are increasingly witnessing attacks by Russian forces on civilian and medical infrastructure across Ukraine, in frontline towns and villages and in the country’s interior,” said Christopher Stokes, MSF’s emergency coordinator in Ukraine. “Hospitals are being destroyed and patients and medical staff killed. The Okhmatdyt hospital in Kyiv, which was attacked today, is known to our teams. At the start of the all-out war, our doctors supported medical staff in surgical departments and trained physiotherapists. It is unacceptable that patients cannot feel safe and receive treatment within the walls of a hospital.”

Our teams are increasingly witnessing attacks by Russian forces on civilian and medical infrastructure across Ukraine, in frontline towns and villages, and deeper into the country.

CHRISTOPHER STOKES, MSF EMERGENCY COORDINATOR IN UKRAINE

The Ukrainian Interior Ministry reports that the rocket attack on the Okhmatdyt hospital killed two adults and injured 16 people, including seven children. Rescue workers and volunteers are working hard to reach the basement of the hospital building, which collapsed due to the rocket impact, as children and medical staff had taken shelter there during the alarm.

A team from Doctors Without Borders visited the hospital today to assess the situation and offer assistance if needed.

MSF is responding to requests from the Ministry of Health and supporting hospitals near the front lines as well as departments of medical facilities where patients with war injuries receive early physical rehabilitation. Our teams continue to support medical facilities by evacuating patients between hospitals and towns using MSF ambulances.

How MSF helps in Ukraine

When large-scale war broke out in Ukraine in 2022, MSF expanded its activities to meet the wide range of medical needs, supporting health facilities, operating mobile clinics and a specially designed medical train to transport patients from overstretched Ukrainian hospitals near active war zones to larger-capacity Ukrainian hospitals further from the front lines.

Our teams also provide mental health care in 10 different locations outside Kyiv. In 2022, these teams conducted nearly 1,000 individual mental health consultations and 184 group therapy sessions.