W
Medical Aid to Ukraine
ar to this generation is distant—an event that occurs on foreign soil. Once, not too long ago, Ukrainians felt the same. But now Ukrainians have been abruptly awoken to the evil realities of war, and millions of refugees have evacuated their homes. Recently, a group of American physicians worked side by side with native Ukraine healthcare professionals from the Angelia Clinic, a Loma Linda University partner that
28 Pacific Union Recorder
Arizona Conference
had evacuated the Ukraine capital, Kyiv. We went to offer any humanitarian medical assistance we could, even while being distracted by missile air raid sirens in the distance. This was our second mission to Ukraine in two months. Our first mission’s goal was to deliver critical food and water to the refugees on the roads and assess where we could help medically. The second mission was solely medically focused. When I arrived back from the first mission, I contacted Loma Linda Health President Richard Hart and alerted him to the medical needs of the crisis. Dr. Hart directed me to Yurii Bondarenko, the director of the Angelia Clinic, and Chief Medical Officer Serhi Serdenyuk. When the Angelia Clinic evacuated from Kyiv, they set up temporary operations in the southwestern city of Chernivtsi, Ukraine. Dr. Yurii and Dr. Serhi adapted to the needs of the country and transformed their clinic into mobile medical vans, which allowed them to deliver medical care to Ukrainian cities devasted by war. The American team of physicians who were part of the second mission trip included Orson Anderson and William Guthrie (family practice), John Mason (emergency medicine), and myself, Troy Anderson (neurology and sleep medicine specialist). We worked side by side with the Angelia clinic’s physicians, who included Tatiana Zubkova (gynecology) and Serhi Serdenyuk (family practice and chiropractor). In addition to the physicians, the medical team included nurses, laboratory technicians, phlebotomists, ultrasound technicians,