Cherkasy clinics

When we left Mykolaiv, we moved to the city of Cherkasy.  It is much further away from the border with a population of about 250,000 but still subject to drone and missile strikes (and air raid alerts twice a day).  Like Mykolaiv, it is a bright (even in the evening), thriving city and again with the expected amenities.  It is situated on the banks of the broad Dnipro river.  It is culturally significant as the cultural center of the 13th century Ukrainian cossacks.

Here in our clinics, we saw Ukrainian ‘refugees’ (technically Internally displaced persons) on the first floor of their apartment buildings.   We used rooms that were set up for a nurse but again, no physicians had seen them since their occupancy.  Most of the people were displaced from the Donbas region in the east of the Ukraine and spoke Russian as a first language.  As in the villages, the chronic health conditions were combined with stress and anger over the loss of their homes.  We had two mental health providers on our team and they stayed busy.  The rooms were more amenable to the provision of healthcare (ie enough heat to not have to wear your puffy coat in the clinic and where you only had to use your flashlight to concentrate on specific skin lesions) and we could perform procedure (usually joint injections) if needed.  Often, when these patients were anxious, they tried to compensate by controlling everything that they could.  That included the clinic conversations.  Once you realized that, it was easy to understand their issues and to work with them.  As before, the people were profoundly happy for our help.  

Thank you again for your support and prayers.  They have made this and future missions here possible.  God bless you all.