Dontesk, Ukraine - Delivering Medical Care on the Frontline

UNDER BOMBARDMENTDELIVERING MEDICAL CARE IN DONETSK

UNDER BOMBARDMENTDELIVERING MEDICAL CARE IN DONETSK

All Photographs by Manu Brabo for MSF

In the last two weeks, fighting in eastern Ukraine has escalated to a level not seen since the peak of the conflict in the summer of 2014. The situation for civilians, caught in the conflict zone, is now dire as medical facilities continue to be hard hit. In just the last two weeks, five medical facilities supported by MSF have either been damaged or destroyed by shelling or rockets fired by the warring factions.

Doctors working in hospitals on and near the frontline, are struggling to treat the wounded with dwindling supplies. MSF teams in the region are urgently expanding their support on both sides of the frontline, but continued heavy fighting is preventing them from reaching some of the hardest hit areas.

MSF has been working in Donetsk - at the epicentre of the armed conflict - since 2011, running a programme to treat patients with drug-resistant tuberculosis within the regional penitentiary system. Since March last year MSF has also been providing counselling to victims of the violence, as well as technical and emotional support for mental health professionals to increase their capacity to deliver psychological care to a traumatised civilian population.

In January photographer Manu Brabo gained unprecedented access to a prison within the besieged town of Dontesk, where MSF staff continue to offer medical care to patients battling Drug Resistant TB. His photographs paint a stark picture of life under bombardment for some of Ukraine’s most vulnerable citizens.

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An elderly woman approaches a food distribution point between Donetsk

and Yasinovataya, Ukraine.

The iron door of one of the areas where patients with TB are isolated in a prison in Donetsk, Ukraine. MSF has been running a Drug Restistant TB treatment program within the penitentiary system in Donetsk since 2011.

A member of the MSF staff treats a patient with TB in a prison in Donetsk, Ukraine, where MSF is helping to treat

TB infected patients.

A DR-TB patient in his cell after receiving being treatment by MSF in a prison in Dontesk, Ukraine.

A patient being treated for TB in a prison where MSF is helping to

treat TB patients, Donetsk, Ukraine.

A patient with TB shows the pills for his treatment in a prison in Donetsk, Ukraine.

MSF staff treat patients with TB in a prison in Donetsk, Ukraine.

Medical consultation room at a prison where MSF is helping to treat patients infected with Drug Restistant TB in Donetsk, Ukraine.

Galina, 86, looks at the hole where a shell hit her apartment in Kievsky district in Donetsk, Ukraine.

MSF delivers medicines to treat chronic diseases to Hospital No.6 in Donetsk, Ukraine.

MSF staff deliver medicines, to treat chronic diseases, to Hospital no.6 in Donetsk, Ukraine.

MSF Dr Wael delivers x-ray film to the Central Hospital for trauma in Donetsk, Ukraine.

An MSF psychologist during a consultation at the health center called Ambulatory #6 in Shakhtarsk, Donetsk region, Ukraine.

An MSF psychologist during a consultation with a patient at the health center called Ambulatory #6 in Shakhtarsk, Donetsk region, Ukraine.

People wait for a counselling session with the MSF psychologist at the Ambulatory #6 health centre in Shakhtarsk, Donetsk region, Ukraine.

A Ukrainian doctor treats a patient at the health center called Ambulatory #6 in Shakhtarsk, Donetsk region, which MSF has been supporting since December 2014.

A woman stands next to a makeshift kitchen in the Sieverniy

area of Donetsk, close to the frontline between Donetsk city

and Yasinovataya, Ukraine.

Bread covered in blood after a shell severely wounded the owner of the store in the Semashko area of Kirovsky, a district in Donetsk, Ukraine.

Men clear debris after a shell fell near their apartment in Voroshilovsky area, in the center of Donetsk, Ukraine.

Damaged residential buildings in Donetsk, Ukraine.

Semashko area, Kirovsky district, Donetsk, Ukraine.

Octyabirsky district, Donetsk, Ukraine.