Lviv children's hospital races to keep treating

STORY: Coming from cities that have seen bombardment, the perilous journey for these patients to arrive at the hospital has taken them several hours, weaving around roadblocks and attacks, in cars, buses, or on trains.

The hospital, which treats acute and chronic diseases, has become a hub for the country’s child cancer patients and doctors are mounting a daily operation to evacuate them swiftly across the border to Poland due to the urgency of their care.

Priority say doctors is to get heavy cases to European countries, so their cancer treatment is not disrupted or affected.

“A lot of oncological patients, they must have surgeries done because they cannot wait, or for example if they need to get chemotherapy, or if they need special devices for long chemotherapy,” said Leshnevskyy.

Since the Russian invasion began some 200 children have been successfully transferred to Poland from the hospital, primarily serious oncology cases.

On Thursday the centre's 189 beds, nine of which are in intensive care, were full, 120 with patients, and 69 with their relatives, and doctors are overwhelmed.

Doctors said there are no shortages of basic general medicines, as other hospitals in Ukraine and Poland have been pitching in, and local volunteers are providing food, but more specific drugs and supplies have been a problem, such as dialysis equipment.