In any country at peace, if a person presents a level of blood pressure very altered, like 200 over 100 -when the normal pressure reading is 120 over 80- he is hospitalized. Not in the war. Cases of skyrocketing blood pressureamong many other ailments, is what they are finding mobile clinics of Doctors Without Borders (MSF) who have accessed the Kharkiv area recaptured by Ukraine after months of Russian occupation.
Many of the patients are ‘babushkas’ –ukrainian old and old women– who have survived as best they could for more than half a year of Russian occupation in shelters, sharing what little food there was. The ailments of any woman her age have multiplied exponentially and now the health workers have found in Jarkov medical needs y mental without resolving.
limited mobility, Hearing loss o vista, hypertension, diabetes, are an example of the medical tables found by health workers, as explained by Dr. Gino Manciati, head of the MSF medical team, to point out: “In another context, these patients would be hospitalized. Here it is simply not possible.” The doctor explains that the hypertension untreated can cause serious complicationssuch as loss of sight, kidney failure, neurological deterioration and even sudden death. LThe lack of health personnel and medicines, in addition to the stress of the war, has caused the medical conditions of many patients to get out of control. “Unfortunately, we have seen patients who have ended up developing complications in their organs, such as kidney failure,” adds the doctor.
Diabetics without medication
In this region, the war has prevented many people with diabetes dispose of medicines, aggravated by the fact that food shortages has prevented control your dietwhich has led to problems of mobility, vision and muscle function.
One of them is María, who has difficulty walking after months without treatment for his diabetes. “we have come here [a la clínica] for the ‘babushka,'” says Tonya, the daughter of Maria. “She’s shaking and her head hurts. [Hace meses] what we don’t have medication for your diabetes“, she points out. Tonya’s husband, who suffers from paralysis, has returned home. Like many other people with severe disabilities, her husband has difficulties leaving the house and therefore cannot access any type of health care.
“An old woman had walked half an hour to get to our clinic, which is not easy when you have trouble walking,” recalls Dr. Manciati, who couldn’t help but be surprised: “What surprised me was that she wasn’t there by herself, but to get medicine for her husband. We see him sometimes: these older women come to us from far away, not just for themselves, but for their husbands or daughters or sons, which cannot reach our equipment. You think you’re here to support the people you see, but sometimes the impact goes further.”
psychological wounds
“When the war came, on the morning of February 24, I was sitting by my window,” she says. Raisa68 years old, who has remained in su aldea natal de Yakovenkove from the beginning. “I heard loud explosions and saw a cloud of dust in the sky. Rows of tanks began to advance. When we understood that it would not all be over in one day, we tried to think what to do: how to eat, how to take care of our gardens. We tried to get used to the situation. , but it was impossible to get used to such a volume of shelling. Shooting all night and all day. It was terrible.”
Raisa receives mental health support of psychological team from the mobile clinic MSF. It provides patients with tools to manage their stress, which can help normalize blood pressure, and provides coping mechanisms for anxiety, acute stress reactions, and panic attacks. “I came to see the psychologist because I still can’t sleepsays Raisa. “In the dead of night, missiles fly over buildings. It’s very scary. It’s destroying my nervous system“.
Although many people recover on their own from nightmares and flashbacks, mental health support can speed up your recovery. When this support is not enough, MSF doctors and psychologists work together to find the best way to help patients.
“I wake up horrified”
“I sleep very badly, I’m exhausted“, recognize Valentina70, from Vasylenkova, who lost his son Roma to a land mine. “I wake up horrified and see it in front of me. This war has taken my health and my son“, he says. “I cry and scream. Now he is gone and my life is over“.
Valentyna receives health care to help with her sleep problems, while MSF psychologists provide her with mental health support.
Many of the older women who attend MSF clinics feel isolated, abandoned and alone. With the pain of losing family members and the life they knew, many they feel that their lives no longer have meaning. “For these older women, the feeling of having lost their purpose in life causes anxiety, and the impression of having to reconstruct a new purpose for the last years of their lives, hopelessness,” explains the Head of MSF mental health activities, Camilo García. “We hear older women tell us that they feel the last years of their lives have been stolen from them,” she adds.
among the most vulnerable are the older people with dementia or psychiatric conditions who could not travel to a safe place at the beginning of the war and those who are alone with no one to care for them. Some decided to stay in their homes, others were evacuated to overcrowded hospices in the cities; these evacuations are still going on.
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Although the mental health needs of the inhabitants of this region are high, García believes that their inner strength will help them cope and recover.
“Ukraine’s ‘babushkas’ have a hidden power: resilience“, says García. “They have decided to stay in their towns despite the fighting and the bombs. They have defended their right to stay where they belong,” he adds, “which requires courage.”