Michael Roesch, a surgeon with Doctors Without Borders, has had a harrowing dispatch published in The Guardian about his experiences in the separatist-held city of Horlivka (Gorlovka).:
The hospitals are running out of basic medical supplies. Doctors in other hospitals have told us they have no surgical sutures left so the surgeons are stitching people up with fishing line. As the water supply worsens due to the shelling, diarrhoea among infants is increasing, but the children’s hospital has run out of the infusions they need to prevent dehydration. Supplies of drugs have run out – we’ve been asked for insulin, antibiotics and disinfectants for wounds – we’ve already received a huge list of things they urgently need beyond what we’ve already brought in. But getting supplies into the city is not easy. Gorlovka is surrounded by the front line and can only be reached on one narrow entry road. The area gets shelled often it and frequently it is closed.
I’m a surgeon, but I have never seen so many amputated people – people go shopping and an hour later they are without their legs. The surgeons – who have never had to deal with war-wounded before – are having to here carry out at least one or two amputations every day.
Read the entire article here