In occupied Nova Kakhovka, the situation with medical services remains critical and shows no signs of improvement.
The legitimate mayor of the city, Volodymyr Kovalenko, told the Center for Journalistic Investigations this.
According to him, currently in the Nova Kakhovka community there remains only one general practitioner, about seven doctors of other specialties and about a dozen nurses.
“This is a catastrophic indicator, given that before the full-scale invasion on February 24, 2022, about 900 specialists provided medical care to residents,”, – noted Kovalenko.
The occupiers tried to fill the huge personnel shortage with visiting medics from Russia, but they do not stay in the city. Due to the lack of specialists, local residents are forced to seek assistance in neighboring Kakhovka or travel to remote settlements — Novotroitske, Henichesk or Skadovsk. For a long time the city could not even provide basic laboratory tests, such as a routine blood test, the mayor said.
The most difficult situation has developed for patients with serious diagnoses. Getting to specialists in narrow specialties, having an operation or undergoing cancer treatment is only possible in Crimea. Such trips to Simferopol, which is located 250 km away, require huge expenses from people for renting private transport, accommodation and food, which many simply cannot afford.
As Volodymyr Kovalenko notes, the scariest thing for people in the occupation now is the risk of falling ill, since due to the inaccessibility of medicine most residents are forced to self-medicate.
Against this background, the Russian Federation constantly claims to allocate funds for hospitals in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine.
According to the occupiers themselves, only 34% of the population of temporarily occupied Kherson region are satisfied with medical services.