Four Ukrainian pediatric cancer patients and their families have been transferred from Poland to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee.
State Department spokesperson Ned Price said in a statement that his agency coordinated with St. Jude’s “to provide necessary life-saving and immediate care to four Ukrainian children whose ongoing cancer treatment was disrupted by President Putin’s war of choice.”
Price added, “We recognize, however, that the children transported represent a small proportion of the thousands of patients whose cancer treatment has been interrupted and, who, even amid a pandemic and with compromised immune systems, were forced to flee their homes.”
Approximately 3.4 million Ukrainians have fled their country since the Russian invasion began on February 24th. Another 6 million plus are internally displaced within Ukraine.
On Tuesday, the World Health Organization reported that Russia has launched at least 60 attacks on Ukrainian health care facilities, killing 15 and compromising the nation’s ability to respond to a rapidly escalating humanitarian crisis. A children’s hospital in Mariupol were among the facilities targeted.
An influx of roughly 1.8 million Ukrainian refugees has also impacted health care systems in Poland. The Washington Post reports:
Backlogs at city hospitals because of the coronavirus pandemic were just starting to ease when the Ukraine war erupted, he said. Ukrainians who need to be seen right away will be prioritized, [Warsaw mayor Mayor Rafal] Trzaskowski said, and he worries that people who have been waiting for months for some medical procedures will have to wait longer.
The flood of arrivals is also taking a toll on psychological care. The city administration has redirected all of Warsaw’s child psychologists to tend to Ukrainians, who are suffering emotionally after enduring explosions, fleeing their homes and leaving loved ones behind. The city is trying to identify Ukrainian refugees who can help provide such care.
“I can deprive [those children] of psychologists for two to three weeks, but I cannot do it for months,” Trzaskowski said.
