Highland surgeon reflects on return visit to Ukraine with the HALO Trust
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A Highlands surgeon has made a return visit to Ukraine as the war continues more than two years after the full-scale invasion by Russia.
Andy Kent, a trauma and orthopaedic surgeon at Inverness’ Raigmore Hospital, was in the country for two weeks as a volunteer with the HALO Trust, a Scotland-based charity whose mission is to protect lives and restore the livelihoods of those affected by conflict worldwide.
It came just a few weeks after Mr Kent returned from a month-long visit to Gaza where he was a volunteer as part of a specialised surgical team with the medical charity UK-Med.
Highland surgeon on 'survivor guilt' leaving Gaza
His trip to Ukraine coincided with a surge in missile activity from the Russian military and a sense of foreboding that the situation is set to worsen as Russia prepares for a summer offensive.
He also met surgeons with whom he had worked on previous visits and felt they looked ‘pretty exhausted’.
But arriving in Ukraine, he was also struck by the numbers of people who seemed to be returning to their homeland.
"One of my ‘take homes’ from this visit, even as I was travelling on the overnight sleeper from Poland to Kyiv, was that it was remarkable how many women and young children were on the train heading back to Kyiv," he said.
As a medical adviser with the HALO Trust, Mr Kent’s role was to assess the medical programme in the country and to ensure that training, equipment and casualty management plans are in place.
To do this, he visited the main areas where HALO is active, running casualty evacuation exercises on various sites.
A full medical board visit had not been undertaken since Russia’s invasion in February 2022 and his visit was delayed for some months due to ongoing geo-political issues including the Ukraine winter and the Israel - Gaza conflict.
Despite the challenges, he managed to visit all major HALO bases at Kharkiv, Mykolaiv, Dnipro, Brovary and Kyiv, travelling with a medical support officer, a driver and interpreter.
“Ukraine is a massive country and travelling between bases, either by road or rail, is onerous and not without risk, particularly in winter,” he said.
He last visited Kharkiv a year ago and although it is a functioning city, he detected an oppressed feeling during his three days there.
“There was a lot of missile activity while I was there,” he said.
“The Russians seemed to be mostly targeting the missiles at infrastructure such as power stations.
"Having just got back from Gaza, it was not anything like as intimidating as Gaza was."
In Dnipro, he noted changes since his last visit.
“It felt more open,” he said.
“The population has grown since I was last there and even the colleges and universities seem to have opened up and there were a lot more students.
“The weather was spectacular and it had a nice feeling about it but clearly it is under threat.”
Mr Kent previously visited Ukraine on three occasions with UK-Med to help establish surgical training and support.
During his latest trip, he managed to meet local surgeons in Dnipro with whom he has previously worked.
"Chatting to the surgeons I have worked with in the past, they are as busy as ever and looked pretty exhausted and a bit despondent that the world's attention seems to have wandered away from Ukraine,” he said.
"They are very keen for us not to forget them.
"Just now, it has been over two years since they have been working flat out - many of them with families abroad.
“There doesn't seem to be an end in sight."
He felt that supply chains for medical supplies seem to have improved but noted the medical teams, unfortunately, had become much more experienced in dealing with horrendous war injuries because of the constant volume they were seeing.
He said Injuries among the civilian population were mostly from missile strikes although there were some landmine injuries while injuries among the military tended to be from shelling.
Along with funding for various projects being a challenge, there is also sense that the situation in Ukraine will get worse this year.
“Before, they were able to take down Russian missiles,” Mr Kent said.
“The percentage of missiles they can intercept is dropping.
“There is frustration that the west offered such help to Israel but not to Ukraine.”
Certainly the work being carried out by organisations such as the HALO Trust is vital and appreciated.
“I think first and foremost, it helps to give support to the people of Ukraine - that they are happy that someone with my experience has come out and given them some training,” he said.
“I think more importantly it is to make sure that things are in place, that if there was a tragic incident, the medical treatment for casualties would be optimised.”
As he returns to his work as a surgeon at Raigmore Hospital, he reflected that coming back from the Ukrainian visit was completely different to returning from Gaza after a gruelling four weeks at Al-Aqsa Hospital.
On that occasion, he described his ‘survivor guilt’.
Undoubtedly, the Ukrainian visit will not be the last mercy mission for Mr Kent who was made an OBE last year for services to UK health support overseas, particularly in Ukraine, and during the Covid-19 pandemic.
“I have a skills set which unfortunately is in demand,” he said.
“But doing what I do gives me a lot of satisfaction and helps to keep me motivated.”
