Author: Olena Riga, Professor, Center of Palliative Medicine, Kharkiv National Medical University.
Epigraph Newton’s Law 3: If two bodies exert forces on each other, these forces have the same magnitude but opposite directions.
This lunar month has passed like one terrible day for our peaceful citizens. We are giving birth to a new generation of people in cellars and under shelling. We are faced with death face to face. We have a genocide against our people. We have mass graves counted in thousands of dead and thousands of people with acute grief but we will not give up.
Today I want to write a few examples in which the desire to live, to help others especially more vulnerable people, to believe in victory and good is glimmering. Kharkiv National Medical University, where our Center for Palliative Medicine was open, is located in the very epicenter of the destruction and bombardment of the enemy continues to train medical workers who are necessary for the conditions of a humanitarian catastrophe. Moreover, students went to hospitals to help doctors. We already have the names of our graduates who died defending their native land.
We are faced with the fact that our people do not have enough anesthesia in conditions of high injuries and wounds. The issue has not been resolved, but volunteers and humanitarian aid from many countries have begun to work. For me, the heroes are two men who developed pediatric palliative care in Ukraine. Roman Marabyan – Director of the Regional Clinical Center for Medical Rehabilitation and Palliative Care for Children (Kharkov) and Igor Trofimov – Head of the Mobile Palliative Care Service for Children (Kyiv). They are now soldiers! (Roman is on the right and Igor left)
Despite the fact that many people managed to leave the zones of active warfare, many families with children in need of palliative care are still either in the occupied territories or in war zones. We began to contact them, collect needs and connect volunteers. Humanitarian aid comes in large quantities from all over our planet, our world does not leave us. This gives us even more strength and faith for the future. My dear colleagues in palliative care, we hear and feel your prayers, we feel that you are near us. I chose Newton’s third law as my epigraph. If Russia used inhuman force against us, then the global world counterforce is aimed at peace and goodness, at humanity and love. #StopRussia Olena Riga, professor, Center of Palliative Medicine, Kharkiv National Medical University
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