Oksana She is 36 years old and has just given birth to a child at the Kherson Prenatal Center. He is his second son and he never thought that he would be born in the middle of a war, in the 21st century. The doctors have performed a caesarean section, taking advantage of the fact that there was electricity in the building. They have not risked waiting, in case they cut it. There was also a Russian bombardment going on, rumbling inside the operating room.
Don’t your hands tremble when you hear the sound of the rockets? I ask the two surgeons who have just attended the delivery. Tatiana Kabachok He takes a long breath of air before answering: “Your heart falls to your feet, but you can’t stop. It’s our job and our duty,” he says.
[El ejército ruso mata a un bebé en el bombardeo contra la maternidad de un hospital en Zaporiyia]
Of the four operating rooms and delivery rooms that this maternity has, only two can be used. Those that are not oriented towards the Dnieper river, from where the Russian projectiles arrive. Listening to the conditions in which they work makes your hair stand on end. Acting Director, Oksana TomchenkoHe even has to sleep in the hospital itself. “I live far away and there are days when I couldn’t get there, because they bomb at any time.”
“During the Russian occupation, cases of stress in pregnant women, premature births and hemorrhages skyrocketed”
I am interested in how these random bombings -which impact food markets, hospitals, university residences or apartment buildings every day- affect the mental health of pregnant mothers. “During the Russian occupation, cases of stress in pregnant women, premature births and hemorrhages skyrocketed,” the chief surgeon of this maternity hospital explained to EL ESPAÑOL, Petro Marenkovsky. “Now, with the daily attacks, the situation has not improved,” she adds with a scowl on her face and shaking her head.
The little one, still nameless, was born during a Russian artillery attack.
With the effect of the anesthesia still visible and the exhaustion reflected in her face, the new mom smiles when the nurse enters with the newborn wrapped in blankets, and places him in a crib next to her. The baby has not yet opened its eyes and its skin is very red, but it is crying loudly. What is his name going to be?, she asked him as she gazed at the boy enthralled. “I still don’t know, I’ve had a lot on my mind these months,” she replies.
fear of getting pregnant
Kherson is the only Ukrainian capital that the Kremlin had managed to conquer in ten months of fighting. Before the war, it had a population of 350,000 and an industry that was diversifying quite successfully. Innovative renewable energy projects coexisted with the traditional canning industry, agriculture and the activity of shipyards.
Today there are less than 50,000 inhabitants left, hardly anyone can work and many are considering evacuating to other cities in the face of the incessant -and bloody- daily bombardments that come from the other bank of the Dnieper River, where Russian troops have entrenched – with the intention of resist at least during the winter-.
The chief surgeon, Petro Marenkovskiy, shows an operating room unusable by the attacks.
Of the four maternity hospitals that existed, only two are now working. One was bombed in November and the other is unmanned. There are many doctors, nurses and orderlies who have fled the city. So in the hospitals that continue to work, they do so at half throttle, with 50% of the staff.
At the Prenatal Center, the surgeon kabachokthe doctor Evgeny Voloshyna young anesthetist named sergey and two midwives make up the medical team on call. Today they have attended two deliveries. The normal thing would be to treat between five and 10, but, like the medical personnel, many future mothers have also fled Kherson.
“We have a generator that is enough for the operating room and little else. (…) We are waiting for a 110-kilowatt generator to arrive that Israel has donated”
“And the women who have not left, in many cases, have not wanted to become pregnant under the Russian occupation. Most families planned their children before the war, and since March the number has plummeted,” says the surgeon. boss while we walk the corridors of the maternity.
Surgeons Tatiana Kabachok and Evgeny Voloshyn, minutes after delivering Oksana.
Zelensky has paid the salaries
Tomchenko and Marenkovskiy acknowledge that it is not easy to organize to work with half the medical staff -who are now on longer shifts-, avoiding the bombings and attending deliveries with many more complications than before the Russian invasion.
As we walk through the operating room, where several people are cleaning everything at great speed, I notice that the hospital is in dim light. “It’s for security,” reveals director Tomchenko. “We use small lights, which do not attract attention from the outside, and we have covered the windows of the delivery rooms and recovery rooms.”
And what do you do when the electricity is cut off? I ask. “We have a generator that is enough for the operating room and little else”, clarifies the chief surgeon. “We are waiting for one of 110 kilowatts to arrive, which Israel has donated. But for now we are going with a small one, of 10 kilowatts,” he acknowledges.
The acting director of the center, Oksana Tomchenko, in one of the delivery rooms.
With the supply of medicines there is no problem at the moment. “When the invasion began, the annual order had just arrived, and since there are now many fewer deliveries, we still have what we need stored. In addition, the Red Cross is also in contact with us, in case we need anything,” they stress.
Nor did they lack their salary during the almost nine months of Russian occupation. “The Ukrainian government sent it to us normally every month, despite the fact that Russia had established its own administration here,” Tomchenko stresses.
The Kremlin is applying the “scorched earth” policy with Kherson: since it has failed to hold its position, it is blowing up the city with artillery
an uncertain winter
The little one who has just been born, in the middle of a bombardment, has come into the world in a “free” city. At least that’s what the residents I ask when I leave the maternity hospital say. A new wave of explosions surprises us in the middle of the street, and the Ukrainian Army responds from some position near the river. The noise is tremendous.
Facade of the Kherson Prenatal Center, one of the two still operating in the city.
But Kherson’s remaining residents feel “free,” pointing to the blue and yellow flag that flies from some buildings to make their point. The show that it organized, holding illegal referendums at the end of September, to try to annex four other Ukrainian provinces – as it did with Crimea in 2014 – has been of no use to the Russian Federation.
So now the Kremlin is applying the “scorched earth” policy with Kherson: since it has failed to hold its position, it is blowing up the city with artillery. It is cheap, causes no casualties among the Russian ranks, and does not require highly experienced personnel to “soften the target,” which is military jargon. Or what is the same, cause indiscriminate damage that destroys the morale of the people and put the kyiv government on the ropes.
[De Járkov a Jersón: dentro de las contraofensivas con las que Ucrania cambió el curso de la guerra]
The strategy is simple: bomb every day, several times a day. And during the night too. To this we must add the Russian snipers, who have already shot several people near the Antonov bridge -including journalists- causing almost no one to dare to walk there.
The problem – or the advantage, depending on which side you look at it from – is that the irreducible Ukrainians do not shrink from the sound of the explosions. Not even the women who have to give birth listening to the sound of the bombs that fall a few streets away from where they are.
