How Poland Embraced Its Neighbors in Need

“So, war! As of today, all matters and issues are receding into the background. All our life, public and private, is switched to a special track, we have entered a period of war. The whole effort of the nation must go in one direction. We are all soldiers. We must think of only one thing: to fight until victory!”

Those were the words of a Polish radio announcer in 1939, when Nazi Germany attacked Poland. Today the Russian Federation’s “military special operation” in Ukraine provides an analogous situation.

On the morning of Thursday, February 22, Russian troops crossed the borders of Ukraine and began to push deep into its territory. The Ukrainian army, to the Russians’ great surprise, resisted. Ukrainians began buying up food and medicine, and some began fleeing west. President Vladimir Putin announced Russia was launching a “special military action” to defend the self-proclaimed republics in eastern Ukraine, which Russia had recognized as independent states a few days earlier. The Donbas, or so-called “republics,” have declared independence but are part of Ukraine under international law.

Russia’s aggression unveiled the better face of Polish society. Working in health care, I was able to compare the scale of relief efforts to the first months of the COVID-19 pandemic, when Poles began to throw themselves en masse to support medics, as well as raise money for thousands of companies threatened with collapse. I could list here various forms of assistance Poles provided to Ukrainian citizens leaving their homes and crossing the border, but I would like to focus on local actions, of which there were plenty, often provoked by health care institutions such as hospitals, medical transport companies, medical rescue teams, and the public.

First Needs: Clothing and Food

In the first days of Russian aggression, Polish society responded with all kinds of large-scale collections, primarily of clothing and food. Transport companies and other private carriers organized trips to the border, where numerous “towns” of help were established.

Refugees pack in a hurry and take only the most necessary things. Those arriving from Ukraine needed almost everything to survive their first difficult days in a new country. Hence, in addition to clothing, they were provided food and collected medical supplies: medical spirits, disinfectants, antiseptics, masks, bandages, tourniquets, dressings, gauze, nitrile gloves, stretchers, triangular slings, painkillers, cough and cold medicines, antipyretics, military/tactical first aid kits, emergency blankets, and much more.

Collections were organized by individuals, nongovernmental institutions, clubs, hospitals, and youth groups, but the help did not end there.

How We Brought Aid to Ivano-Frankivsk

The decision to send medical aid from our hospital in Gorzow Wielkopolski, Poland to the hospital in Ivano-Frankivsk, Ukraine was made on the first day of the war. Our hospital has about 90 employees from Ukraine. It was a quick decision by hospital Presidents Jerzy Ostrouch and Robert Surowiec: “We sympathize. You have friends in us. You are not alone,” said Ostrouch at the meeting, and he asked what could be done immediately. Needs included nitrile gloves, nonwoven dressings, nonwoven compresses and gauze, support bandages, injection needles, ultrasound machines, transport ventilators, stationary ventilators, infusion pumps, treatment tables, and carts for transporting patients.

Maryna Nahornyi, her husband, Ivan, and Andrii Kadukha have been working in our emergency department for over a year. They come from Kharkiv, where they left their parents. They wanted to do something for their country, so they requested leave to go to the border. Colleagues in the ED arranged a quick collection of hygiene products, baby food, etc., so they wouldn’t go empty-handed. The doctors took what they could on the train. A week later the equipment was handed over to the Ukrainians.

The provincial ambulance station in Szczecin, my former employer, also shared its best: an ambulance with full equipment (ZOLL monitor, resuscitation bag, equipment for immobilization, medical equipment—equipment paramedics use every day).

“The provincial ambulance station has had a longstanding friendship with medics from Ukraine,” says station head Roman Palka. “We have met both in Poland and Ukraine. In 2013 a cooperation agreement was signed… Since then we have already donated 6 ambulances to Ukraine. We are helping as much as we can and will continue to help while hoping that the tragedy in Ukraine will end as soon as possible.”

Help From All Sides

My paramedic colleague who runs a private medical transport company donated 2 ambulances with medical equipment to, among others, the 95th Air Assault Brigade in Zhytomyr and Kiev, but these are only the units closest to me. The whole country was overwhelmed by the common movement.

As a state Poland officially donated 25 ambulances to Ukraine; Falck gave 30. The Great Orchestra of Christmas Charity, a major charitable organization in Poland, joined in to help.

“The ambulances help save lives that are at risk during the war with a terrible enemy,” says Lviv regional government chair Maxim Kozytsky. “During the occupation of Ukraine, the Russians stole and destroyed ambulances—the sick and wounded we had to carry on foot.”

“It must affect us,” as some psychologist said. Those who have fled Ukraine, mainly women with children, leaving behind fathers and brothers, are our neighbors, and Ukrainians comprise one of the largest groups of foreigners in Poland. Every Pole knows some person of Ukrainian origin, as I do—the above-mentioned doctors, as well as paramedics working in our hospital. They are not strangers—we are culturally similar. Our history is not easy, but it is time to write another new chapter of Polish-Ukrainian friendship.

Robert Rajtar is a medical rescuer with 18 years of service experience in hospital emergency department and EMS teams in Poland and Germany.