A cardiac surgeon in Calgary led a move to send medical and surgical supplies to Ukraine after he saw a doctor there treating open-heart surgery patients in a bomb shelter.
Dr. Paul Fedak, who is a Ukrainian-Canadian, said that months ago he saw a post on social media from a Ukrainian heart surgeon, Dr. Igor Mokryk, photographing patients in a bunker while bombs go off overhead.
“I can only think of how difficult it is in our own health care system and in my own practice to care for these patients,” said Fedak, the director of the Libin Cardiovascular Institute at Foothills Medical Center. “I can’t even imagine what it would be like trying to care for these patients during a war.”
Fedak, his team and Alberta Health Services put together a cardiac care kit that includes about 30 boxes of personal protective equipment, bandages, catheters, syringes, surgical gowns and defibrillator electrodes.
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“To defibrillate and shock someone, you need the special pads. If they don’t have that, their equipment is essentially useless,” Fedak said at a news conference on Thursday.
Fedak said the supplies are either surplus or past their recommended shelf life, but are safe to use. He said the boxes will be sent to a source Ukraine uses in Poland, which will make sure the medical equipment arrives safely.
He said the Heart Institute in Kiev has provided a long list of items that are difficult to obtain.
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Fedak hopes to send more supplies and hopes that other medical facilities will also send excess items.
“By providing these things, we are going to enable them to continue providing care. With the latest attacks, they are suffering from electricity problems and it is not safe to move,” said Fedak.
“All they have to do is open the boxes and immediately they will be able to use the material.”
Fedak said he initially reached out to Mokryk out of compassion and wanted to make sure he was OK. It was after hearing back from him that he realized there was more that could be done.
“It really shook me because I’m a heart surgeon and because I’m a director of a cardiovascular institute, I know the challenges,” Fedak said.
“I’m also Ukrainian-Canadian and grew up understanding the oppression of Communism and hearing a lot of stories growing up and the atrocities, so it just broke my heart to think what was going on there and reach out .”
© 2022 The Canadian Press
