Readers asked questions about public services in Ukraine. Oscar Volpe from Chicago asked, “Where are the health and education services (e.g. schools, hospitals, mental health clinics) still operating? How do communities come together to care for the most vulnerable populations?” To get the answer, we asked Megan Specia, a correspondent who has written about life in Ukraine during the war.
Situations in schools, hospitals and other institutions vary widely in Ukraine, but virtually no community has been left untouched as the war, now in its third month, is tearing the fabric of the country’s social institutions. Despite the devastation, community-led efforts and international support have kept many hospitals and schools operating.
Hospitals in cities in the center of the fighting have transferred chronically ill patients to safer facilities in the west of the country or – with the support of international aid organizations – have evacuated patients elsewhere in Europe for care. Medical personnel have turned their attention to dealing with an influx of trauma patients. They have been helped by supplies sent abroad by donors and expertise shared by trauma specialists.
The Russian attack has been a nightmare for expectant mothers, especially in cities like Mariupol, Kharkiv and Chernihiv that have been bombed almost constantly.
Women across the country have been forced to give birth in cold, dilapidated basements or subway stations full of people seeking shelter from shelling, with no electricity, running water or midwives to help them.
Disruption and stress affect many pregnant women in Ukraine. Doctors say refugees who are pregnant are at higher risk of illness, death during childbirth and mental health problems that can persist after birth. According to doctors, babies born to displaced people have a higher rate of preterm birth, low birth weight and stillbirth.
Russian missiles, bombs and artillery have destroyed hospitals and health clinics across the country.
Schools have also been affected, but many have been able to rely on online learning as they try to continue education for the 5.5 million school-aged children who remain in the country.
Students in Ukraine participate in distance learning, face-to-face classes or a combination of both, with more than 3.8 million students back in school, officials say. More than 15,000 schools have introduced distance learning, according to recent figures from the Ministry of Education, and several dozen have a combination of face-to-face and online learning. Students and teachers taking classes remotely described how classes have proceeded normally, except when air strikes sirens go off and those in besieged cities have to take shelter, which can derail that day’s learning.
There are nearly 1,000 schools in areas where education has been completely suspended because the security situation is so tense, officials said. And many classrooms in Ukraine are simply unusable after being damaged or destroyed, or used for military purposes in some areas, especially in the east of the country, where the fiercest fighting is now taking place.
Officials from UNICEF, which supports schools in eastern Ukraine, said at least one in every six schools they work with in that region has been damaged or destroyed since the war started. The organization began collaborating with Ukraine’s Ministry of Education on a program called “Safe Schools” after attacks on schools in the Donbas region when fighting started there in 2014.
Hundreds of thousands of students have been forced to flee the country since the Russian invasion began. Those who have spread across Europe have joined classrooms in unknown countries and in unknown languages. Many have been able to take advantage of initiatives by the Ukrainian Ministry of Education and aid organizations that allow students to continue their studies online while seeking shelter abroad.
Andrew E. Kramer reporting contributed.