A SCOTTISH surgeon will spend his birthday today travelling to Ukraine to help hospitals under attack from Vladimir Putin’s forces.
Andy Kent from Inverness is a volunteer with frontline aid charity UK-Med, which has just received £600,000 from the UK Government to provide humanitarian support to the war-hit country.
The former soldier said: “I’m not sure it would be most peoples’ idea of a birthday treat but I’m looking forward to getting over to Ukraine to help on the ground.
“Putin invaded on February 24 and a UK-Med team first arrived in western Ukraine on March 1 to carry out a recce to assess how we can best help. In the four weeks I was there, I don’t think there was a night you weren’t woken up by air raid sirens going off.
“I’ve seen a lot of war injuries in my career, so I’m used to seeing acute amputations, serious head injuries and chest drains and all that, but it was the sheer volume of it that really blew me away.
Frontline medical aid charity, UK-Med, will receive funding – worth up to £300,000 – from the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office to help train Ukrainian doctors, nurses and paramedics on how to deal with mass casualties. They will also set up mobile health clinics to support the most vulnerable civilians remaining in Ukraine, including the elderly and young children.
Foreign Secretary Liz Truss said: “The Kremlin continues to lie about deliberate attacks on Ukraine’s hospitals and the indiscriminate targeting of civilians. Now our vital humanitarian support will help save lives and deliver medical expertise to the frontline.”
