A virus surge in Ukraine puts hospitals under strain again

Coronavirus infections in Ukraine began surging in late summer, and ripples are w hitting towns like Stebnyk in western part of country, where Dr Natalia Stetsik is watching rising number of patients with alarm and anguish.

“It’s incredibly difficult. We are catastrophically short of doctors,” says Stetsik, chief doctor at only hospital in town of 20,000 people. “It’s very hard for a doctor to even see all patients.”

hospital is supposed to accommodate 100 patients, but it's alrey stretched to limit, treating 106 patients with COVID-19.

Early in pandemic, Ukraine’s ailing health care system struggled with outbreak, and authorities introduced a tight lockdown in March to prevent hospitals from getting overwhelmed.

number of cases slowed during summer but began to rise again quickly, prompting government at end of August to close Ukraine's borders for a month. Despite that, number of positive tests in country reached a new peak of 4,661 a day in first weekend of October.

Overall, COVID-19 infections in country have nearly doubled in past month, topping 234,000.

“ number of patients is rising, and an increasing share of m are in grave condition,” Stetsik told Associated Press of situation in Stebnyk, a quiet town in Lviv region. “ virus is becoming more aggressive and more difficult to deal with.”

She said many of those doing poorly are in ir 30s, ding that an increasing number of m need expensive medication.

“re is a similar situation across entire Ukraine,” she said, ding that hospitals have run out of funds to provide drugs, forcing patients in some areas to buy ir own.

World Health Organization warns that number of infections in Ukraine could continue to grow and reach 7,000-9,000 a day.

government wants to avoid imposing a new lockdown, but officials ackwledge that rising number of infections could make it necessary. It has sought to introduce a more flexible approach to minimize ecomic dam, dividing country into various zones, depending on pace of infections.

At a meeting Monday with officials in Kyiv, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy chastised m for failing to do eugh to slow spre and taking too long to provide necessary supplies.

“We spend weeks on doing things that must be done within days,” he said.

Zelenskiy specifically urged m to move faster on ensuring that hospitals have eugh supplementary oxygen, ting that only about 40% of beds for COVID-19 patients have access to it.

Ukraine’s corruption-ridden ecomy has been drained by a six-year conflict with Russia-backed separatists in eastern part of country, and Zelenskiy's ministration inherited health care reforms from his predecessor that slashed government subsidies, leaving hospital workers underpaid and poorly equipped.

Last month, Zelenskiy ordered government to increase ws for medical workers.

Official statistics show that 132 medical workers have died from coronavirus, although figure doesn't include those who tested negative but h symptoms typical for COVID-19.

One of m was Ivan Venzhyvych, a 51-year-old rapist from western town of Pochaiv, who described challenges of dealing with outbreak in an interview with AP in May.

Venzhyvych died last week of double pneumonia, which his colleagues believed was caused by coronavirus, even though he tested negative for it.

“He certainly h COVID-19,” said Venzhyvych's widow, Iryna, a doctor at hospital where he worked. “re are many infections among medical workers, some of m confirmed and ors t.”

government pays equivalent to $56,000 to families of medical workers who die from coronavirus. But Venzhyvych's widow can't receive payment because he tested negative.

As number of infections soars, many lawmakers and top officials are testing positive, including former President Petro Poroshenko, who was hospitalized in serious condition with virus-induced pneumonia.

Medical professionals want government to bring back a sweeping lockdown, pointing to scarce resources for health care system.

“It’s possible that Ukraine would need to return to a tight quarantine like in spring. number of patients is really big,” said Dr. Andriy Gloshovskiy, a surgeon at hospital in Stebnyk.

He blamed new infections on public negligence.

“People are quite careless, and I feel sorry that y aren’t impressed by numbers,” he said.

Gloshovskiy said he h to switch to treating COVID-19 patients because of personnel short.

“I h to change my specialty because my colleagues simply wouldn’t be able to cope with it without me,” he said.

Health Minister Maxim Stepav ackwledged that short of doctors and nurses is a big problem.

“We may increase hospital capacity and improve oxygen supply, but we could just be simply short of doctors,” he said. “Every system has its limit.”

A tight lockdown would be a severe blow to alrey weakened ecomy, Stepav said, warning that authorities could be forced to do it anyway.

“If situation takes a menacing turn, Health Ministry would propose to return to tough quarantine measures,” he said.

At Stebnyk hospital, some patients said y only realized coronavirus threat after falling ill.

“I didn’t believe in its existence until I became infected,” said 43-year-old Natalia Bobyak. “When I got here I saw that people get sick en masse.”

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