50% of Donbas population is suffering an acute shortage of medications
Half of residents of Donetsk and Luhansk regions require pharmaceuticals. Now, as throughout the whole year of hostilities, there is a shortage of essential medical supplies. This conclusion was made by experts and analysts of Kyiv International Institute of Sociology based on research of humanitarian needs in Donbas. The research was ordered and organized by Rinat Akhmetov Humanitarian Center and Dopomozhemo TV.
"We explain the consistent difficult situation with medications during the year by economic blockade and the lack of rules for import of medications as humanitarian assistance to non-government-controlled areas of Donbas. The state does not supply medications across the contact line. And humanitarian missions have no possibilities to secure prompt and unconstrained supplies of medications to non-government-controlled territories, so they are forced to deliver them only in small quantities through volunteers", – Rimma Fil, the Coordinator of Rinat Akhmetov Humanitarian Center, declared.
The most demanded categories of pharmaceuticals include heart disease drugs (30%), blood pressure medications (24%) and sedatives (12%). There is a lack of other medicines as well, such as antibiotics, antiallergic medications, insulin, etc. These medicines are in short supply in non-government-controlled areas or sold at the escalated prices.
"Even a fragile ceasefire, the cessation of active hostilities , has led to the fact that people began to feel better. More people mentioned that it became easier to live. However, the life in destroyed and severely damaged towns is still very difficult. And we see the shortage of medications. We feel it every day through the number of calls coming to the Humanitarian Center's hotline. People ask for cardiac drugs, anticonvulsants and diabetic medications. There is no insulin in the towns. We believe that the state should stop the medical blockade and give an opportunity for the humanitarian missions to supply essential medications to those categories of population who cannot afford them. And first of all these are children, disabled and elderly people. We see that this is becoming a very serious problem. All the civilized society should accede to the requests of the international humanitarian missions, the Humanitarian Center and volunteers to deliver medications to non-government-controlled areas. The Humanitarian Center, on its part, helped and keeps helping in every possible way. During all this time we provide insulin to all children with diabetes living in non-government-controlled areas" – Rimma Fil shared.
Over the whole period of the Humanitarian Center's operation it provided targeted assistance for treatment and rehabilitations after severe illnesses and injuries, obtained in the course of military actions, as well as supply of essential medications for more than 22,000 adults and children.
"Sociology shows that the main focus for the Humanitarian Center in the future shall be medications. Certainly, we cannot help institutionally, as it is done by the Red Cross, and it is very good to have various approaches and different focuses. We will try to help people with specific diseases. We have insulin program. At the moment we are looking at other groups that require assistance. Next week the Humanitarian Center's medicine program will be announced. This will be mostly about the groups of patients who cannot survive without medications", – Natalya Yemchenko, Supervisory Board member at Rinat Akhmetov Humanitarian Center and Public Relations and Communications Director at SCM.
