Yana

I first saw Yana when she was 3 and half years of age abandoned in Malin hospital. She was a lovely little girl,who had trouble walking due to medical problems. It was sad to watch her wandering about the childrens department, smiling when people talked to her, what did the future hold in store for the sick orphan girl.
I found out a year later, Yana had been sent to a state orphanage because she was now too old to continue to live in the hospital she called home. There are many orphanages in Ukraine, the children in them desperately need help. The staff at the hospital do their best, but without funds to buy medicines,medical equipment,food,and many other items it is a never ending struggle.
Among a list of medical equipment the Doctors asked me to try and obtain for them was an Incubator for the Maternity ward, as the only one they had was broken and unrepairable. I will feature the Incubator story in my next blog, the bureaucracy
involved is unbelievable.

End First Visit

The day of the first hospital visit arrived and I set off with Anatoli and his friend Grigori to collect his minibus from the lockup. Two hours later we arrived at the lockups after a tram and Metro journey, magnificent metro stations deep underground with three long escalators, and marble halls. We headed North West from Kiev through a mixture of houses, factories, and farmlands. Travelling along the edges of long fast stretches of roads were traditional horse and carts, bicycles, people. The weather was cold but dry. We turned off the major road onto smaller roads
passing through small towns with strange sounding names, like Baradanka, where I watched a woman buying a large live fish from a water filled basin. The fish jumped off the weighing scales onto the street but was lifted and put into her shopping bag.
Stopping the minibus my friends pointed to an old wooden sign at the roadside, that’s
the original sign for Malin in Russian, now we just need to find the hospital. We drove past picturesque houses with gardens, larger buildings including the local newspaper offices and into the town centre. I was able to read a some Cyrillic names
one for shop, one for hotel, one for bank, as for me to try to ask where hospital was impossible. I listened as Anatoli and Grigori asked where the hospital was understanding not a word.
We arrived at the hospital, a large white tiled building looking more like an abandoned factory than a hospital, poorly dressed people outside the entrance, and really old ambulances in the yard. I followed my friends through the entrance where they asked how to get to the children’s Department. As we walked up broken uneven stairs, with loose banisters, broken light fittings, and draughty windows It was not just the outside that looked like an abandoned factory. When we went into the children’s Department introducing ourselves to the Doctors and Nurses they were so happy to see us. Anatoli explained to them about who I was, and why I wanted to help the children in their care, they invited us to a meal in their office.
I had taken £100 of my own money with me and I went with a Dr. Victoria to the
local bank to change into Ukrainian money then to the chemist to buy medicines
and baby milk powder for the children. As I watched a baby being given milk bought with some of the money I had brought, it was a humbling experience.
When we left waving goodbye to Doctors, Nurses, Mothers and children, I knew
that I would return.

First Visit Final Stage.

As I waited in a very large waiting room in Kiev's International Railway station surrounded by people talking in a language I did not understand. Tanya had prior to leaving arranged for someone to help me make contact with Anatoli, but how. Then I saw a man holding aloft a cardboard hand written placard with what looked like my name written on it. I made myself known to him and he took me by taxi to an apartment in a block of high rise flats. Everything was an experience,the people, buildings,trams, the Metro, streets, markets, everything. Sasha the man who collected me and his wife gave me borsh, bread and tea. I tried out some Russian words I knew, smiles all round but no understanding. About two hours later my friend Anatoli arrived and asked me why I never told him I was coming to Ukraine at that time. I suppose in retrospect I should have, but as he had said come anytime, I thought I would surprise him. When I left Scotland to go over I had no idea of the difficultie I would face trying to get there, but you live and learn. I was in Ukraine in Eastern Europe for the first time. Anatoli took me in the rush hour to his apartment, we travelled by Metro and tram what a journey, like sardines jammed in carriages on the Metro. That night I slept in a bed after three nights on buses, it was
great. The next few days were spent making arrangments to visit the hospital I had come to
visit. What would it be like, I was a bit apprehensive, what would the Doctors and hospital administrators think about me coming to their hospital.