Incubators and baby warmers being sent from Ireland to help struggling Ukrainian maternity hospitals

Medical equipment is loaded onto a truck at the JMC Warehouse in Ballybane, Co Dublin, on Monday, where donations of medical equipment, including baby incubators and ventilators from the HSE are being wrapped and sent to Ukraine, to help medical staff there. Picture: Colin Keegan/ Collins

Incubators and baby warmers for premature babies are among the items in the latest shipment of donated medical aid from Ireland to Ukraine as maternity hospitals there struggle to care for women.

“There is a huge demand for those incubators and warmers in those situations where they have to care for newborn babies in bomb-shelters or even in buildings that are safe-ish to be in,” said Dr Kateryna Kachurets, a Ukrainian GP working in Dublin.

“If it’s a pre-term baby you obviously need medical assistance. That is why we are hoping to ship even more incubators this week.” 

She and other Ukrainian doctors working here formed ‘Medical Help Ukraine’ at the outbreak of the war, supported by the HSE and other medical bodies across the public and private sectors.

Trucks departing for Ukraine this week are carrying mostly used equipment, which she estimates could be worth between €8m and €10m.

This also includes tiny laryngoscopes for intubating premature babies who cannot breathe on their own.

“In medical terms, it is understandable why we have more pre-term babies, it is stress-related,” Dr Kachurets said.

When their mothers are so, so stressed and they fear for their own lives, it can affect their pregnancy. This is most likely why they are going into labour earlier than they were supposed to.” 

Everything they send is packed with adapters as Irish sockets vary from those used in Ukraine, and the group has also funded a generator from funds donated by the public.

They partner with Smart Medical Aid and the Ukrainian government to ensure aid goes directly to hospitals, with an updated list coming from partners in Lviv weekly.

Jacqueline Mahon, principal adviser with the United Nations Population Fund told the Irish Examiner it estimates about 265,000 Ukrainian women would normally have become pregnant in the last month.

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