Midwife Wendy Warrington, who recently won a national award, has joined a brave NHS worker who witnessed terrible atrocities In Ukraine to return to the war-torn country and help give aid.
Marta Roscoe, 37, from Bolton , has previously travelled with a mixed group of various NHS staff to Ukraine, who are at war with Russia, in order to help teach soldiers and civilians how to give aid during the crisis. Marta, who herself has a four-year-old son and a seven-year-old daughter, described the situation as "absolutely brutal" and said one of the patients, Pyotr, described seeing his neighbours put in a line, including small children, and shot."
Currently Marta, a coordinator at Wythenshawe Hospital, is once again risking life and limb in Ukraine, having travelled with registered NHS nurse and midwife Wendy, 55, to Poland in order to deliver aid. Last week, Wendy, from Bury, won The Best Midwife award at The Sun’s Who Cares Wins Awards after she travelled to the Polish border to help refugees.
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The two women flew to Poland together on Tuesday (November 29) and were picked up by a Polish friend who drove them over the border to Ukraine. There, the brave pair picked up a van filled with humanitarian aid, including food, warm clothing and medical supplies, from a Polish priest, before driving it from West Ukraine to East Ukraine though Kyiv - a gruelling 1200 km journey that took 16 hours.
Along the way, they delivered a care parcel to an injured Ukrainian soldier in Kyiv, who had been fighting on the front line in Bakhmut. The pair describe how they are helping people living in conditions where their homes have been "obliterated" and they have no electricity, dropping off candles along with the supplies. They spoke of one elderly man surviving in "dark, cold conditions."
Grandmother of five, Wendy says: We take food, clothes and medicine and there is a massive issue with flu, so I have brought out throat lozenges and medication."
Wendy has spent a total of six months in Ukraine since the war broke out, taking unpaid leave so she could travel back and forth, including taking a sabbatical from work. She was joined by her husband, Simon, for four months, who is currently back in the UK. As well as dropping off supplies both she and Marta help to teach civilians and soldiers how to administer aid.
She says: "The soldiers are sent out with limited medical training and may not know how to put on a tourniquet properly, which can be a case of life and death."
Wendy, who has worked for the NHS for 36 years, has family in Poland and her parents and grandparents were born in the country. Her grandfather moved to the UK after surviving the Auschwitz concentration camp.
The pair, who are currently just 15 km from the Russian border, plan to return home next Tuesday. Speaking of receiving her award on November 27, Wendy says: "I was overwhelmed I did not expect it, It is my vocation, I have been a midwife for over 30 years.
"I was humbled, everybody who was there deserved to win. It's nice to receive but I I did not come out here to win awards."
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