Object:
Plan of the hospital territory
In the exposition of the Museum of Resistance, a sign with a plan of the hospital, damaged as a result of Russian shelling, is presented.
The hospital is open
This is a story about the golden hands and ubreakable hearts of Kherson doctors.
Before the war, the Kherson Regional Clinical Hospital served 25,000 patients a year, all areas of modern surgery were developed here. During the occupation, doctors had to see and experience what they could not even imagine - looting and destruction of hospitals, a catastrophic shortage of medicines. They were also forced to treat according to the standards of the Russian Federation. Many doctors left the occupation. There was a lack of absolutely everything - including personnel and drugs. Volunteers tried to smuggle the medicines, but every month it became more and more difficult to work.
During the first days, Ukrainian defenders from the left bank were brought to the hospital. On March 1, many warriors from the Kherson territorial defense arrived at the hospital. Then a tragedy happened in Buzkoviy Park: the invaders massacred the territorial defense soldiers, they shot them at close range from armored personnel carriers - 18 people died on the spot. Those who survived were treated by doctors.
Doctors not only treated the Ukrainian military. The soldiers were hidden, legends were invented for them, their military IDs were hidden, medical histories were rewritten - they all passed as civilians, doctors reclassified their injuries. The territorial defense soldiers were transferred to gynecology just in case, because they knew that Russians would definitely not be looking there.
Over the course of the next two months, all Ukrainian soldiers, who were treated by the hospital doctors, managed to leave the occupied city.
A little later, wounded Russian military began to arrive at the medical facility. These were episodic cases, because local doctors were not trusted: their actions were constantly monitored by armed invaders.
Vitaliy Grudetskyi, a surgeon, says in interview for Shpalta media:
"They understood how the population of Kherson felt. There were constant protests. Therefore, they were afraid that the doctors would have an inadequate reaction to the Russian military. That's why we were being watched by the "green men" with automatic weapons.
In June 2022, Russians began to summon hospital management for talks. Doctors were offered to transfer personal information of patients from the e-Health electronic database. Based on this data, it was possible to find the military personnel, participants of the anti-terrorist operation. The doctors refused - they said there was no Internet. They were forced to register as Russian specialists - the doctors refused. They were offered retraining in the Russian Federation, promised wages of 80-100 thousand rubles (45-60 thousand UAH). Russians even promised to send those who prove themselves worthy to the Far East, where they will be given a hectare of land - the Russians for some reason considered such an offer a powerful motivator for Ukrainian doctors.
During the occupation, Kherson doctors did more than they could. Almost every specialist in the hospital has become multidisciplinary.
In January 2023, Russians hit the hospital with rockets from an MRL “Grad”.
The hospital is working.
Photo: Svitlana Dumynska
