Back safely
Through Aid to Ukraine another van, loaded with trauma care supplies and IT equipment, has been delivered in Kharkiv. The volunteers who took it over are back safely as well.

For the safety of our volunteers and of the people we work with, we never say exactly what we are bringing, when we go, who goes or how we travel. We stay careful afterwards too. But this van, relief supplies included, arrived safely in Kharkiv. The volunteers are back safely. They drove out in the van, three days to Kharkiv. They came back by train the whole way, this time via Vienna on the night train to Amsterdam.

Several cars are going soon. We may tell you more about that afterwards.

Thanks to a good sponsor we were able to send a whole package of phones and tablets to Kharkiv. A modern portable ultrasound probe paired with a phone from the Netherlands lets this doctor take quick scans. The more mobile this kind of equipment is, the better it stands up to attacks, power cuts and other trouble, so that care can be given even in wartime conditions.

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This year the big Christmas tree in Kharkiv stands in the metro, underground and safe from attack. The city itself is cheerful enough, with a Christmas metro train and decorations along the roads. And Russian fireworks every night, because the attacks carry on through the holidays too. So we carry on as well, raising budget for vehicles, for medical supplies and for IT. Thank you to everyone who contributed this past year.

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Last month we drove vehicles full of practical goods to Kharkiv. Alongside a solid stock for acute care we brought much requested parts for the vehicles, computers and laptops. The visits are good for the contacts and the network, which keeps the truck transports running smoothly and helps us gather the right things back in the Netherlands. That is what the whole project comes down to: the right things, with the right people. Thanks to everything donors in our network here put in, we manage it regularly, and that is wonderful. Thank you.

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Thanks to generous donors and the unfailing help of Almeva B.V., we were able to meet a request from trauma surgeons with pallets of medical supplies. They asked for transfusion sets, pressure bandages, tourniquets and haemostatic gauze: practical things for trauma care. Because of Almeva we ship material of the same quality the ambulance services in the Netherlands use. That way the donations we receive turn into the best possible help for the people there.

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Kharkiv is alive, thanks to its people and in spite of the war. Last month we visited the city to bring vehicles and relief supplies. The human side of the work is perhaps what we add most. The coffee is still better than ours, but in the favourite coffee place there is a bag of tourniquets and pressure bandages on the wall where a defibrillator would hang in the Netherlands. People are holding on. They want to, and they have no other choice.

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The Dutch healthcare magazine FMT Gezondheidszorg published a fine interview with Ruben Hoogenberg of Almeva and with Ron and Niels. Faced with the commitment of Almeva and all the ambulance stations, modesty suits us. Their help is part of why the medics there can save lives. We regularly get messages from families or from the people themselves: small scale help is warmly welcomed and ends up in the right hands.

Read the story at FMT (in Dutch)

One of the volunteer groups is building a new vehicle for transporting the wounded, in practice a van pressed into service as an ambulance. It is done simply, but by people who know what they are doing. Through Almeva we arranged a good stock of consumables: tourniquets, infusion sets, intraosseous drills and gauze.

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This Land Rover Discovery has been checked over by the mechanics at Bas4Cars and we are taking it to Kharkiv loaded with supplies. Alongside the vehicle we are bringing a fresh stock of trauma supplies and practical items such as generators and IT equipment.

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Thanks to Almeva and the ambulance stations working together, we can send pallets of trauma supplies to Kharkiv on a regular basis. In return, colleagues at the ambulance station in Kharkiv sent us the sliding door of an ambulance riddled with shrapnel. It is now on display at Almeva's new premises in Almere. In the Netherlands we work behind the same kind of doors, which makes it striking to see.

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