The EU countries will coordinate their actions to provide medical care to the wounded and chronically ill Ukrainian refugees, by setting up field hospitals in Ukraine’s neighboring countries and ensuring the transfer of critically ill patients to hospitals in the west of Europe. This is the conclusion of the video conference of the health ministers convened by France, in its capacity as president of the EU Council. The 27 have decided that medicines and medical supplies will continue to arrive from across the EU to the countries neighboring Ukraine, to reduce the pressure on their hospitals. Preparations are also underway for the setting up of field hospitals in Poland, for the time being.
At the same time, the European Commission has announced that it will set up patient health assessment points at the Union’s borders. The EC considers it crucial that the national health systems, especially of the countries bordering Ukraine, which are facing an unprecedented influx of refugees, should not be overwhelmed. According to European officials, 10,000 beds in hospitals from European countries are ready to receive patients, especially sick children, mothers with babies, people in need of emergency care and resuscitation, such as the injured or severely burned, and also other chronic patients. A first group of sick refugee children has already been sent from Poland to Italy and, according to the ministers, other transfers will follow.
In turn, Paris has announced that the first Ukrainian patients will arrive in France by the end of the week. Moreover, the European ministers have decided to provide refugees with psychological assistance, needed in these situations. Authorities in European countries will soon create conditions, in the refugee reception centers, for the refugees to be vaccinated against COVID-19, given that, according to official figures, only one in three Ukrainians is vaccinated. The Ukrainian children can also be vaccinated, depending on their age, against other diseases, such as tuberculosis, measles or polio, the European officials said, adding that the rate of vaccination in Ukraine has been very low for several diseases which can be prevented by immunization, especially in the case of children.
In this context, the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control has warned the countries receiving refugees from Ukraine on the large number of infections with dangerous bacteria, resistant to antibiotics, registered in that country and on the risk of their transmission. Estimates by the UN Refugee Agency show that, three weeks after the onset of the Russian invasion, the number of Ukrainians who fled the country neared three million, half of them being children. And their number will certainly increase. In Bucharest, the Romania health minister, Alexandru Rafila, announces that, at present, there are no problems in providing medical assistance to the Ukrainians who are on the territory of Romania. Moreover, a system has been developed through which Ukrainians can benefit from the full range of health services, just like the Romanian patients.
(Daniela Budu, Radio Romania International)
