UK-Med is a frontline medical aid charity, born of the NHS, which has been working for over 30 years towards a world where everyone has the healthcare they need when crises or disasters hit.
The charity responds rapidly to emergencies, delivering the expertise needed to support local health services and to save people’s lives.
One such crisis is the War in Ukraine, which has seen many hospitals and medical centres destroyed and damaged; and under strain as the fighting continues.
In 2022 the charity supported by the Randal Charitable Foundation enabled eight NHS plastic surgeons to travel and treat victims of war in an emergency hospital in Western Ukraine.
The hospital theatre, more used to treating everyday surgical procedures is now dealing with bullet wounds, shrapnel, loss of limbs and wounds only seen in battlefield.
Patients arrive at the hospital from the casualty train, a fully equipped medical train which evacuates critically injured civilians from the embattled frontline regions to safer health facilities in the west. Paramedics meet the train at the local station and transport the injured to the hospital where they will be treated.
The journey is not easy as patients are transported from the frontlines on casualty trains with old wounds contaminated with dirt, fragments and clothing, sometimes with no dressings. This leads to infections which can spread to the limbs and require amputation.
Delivering pioneering treatments in the most challenging circumstances, the plastic surgeons are reconstructing the war wounded using ‘Ortho-plastic’ techniques born of the battlefields of WW1.
Life before limb, was the guiding principle of surgery before the development of Ortho-plastics. The elite surgeons promote saving limbs and avoid limb amputation where possible. Working alongside Ukraine colleagues they are training and upskilling surgeons in Ortho-plastic techniques.
To find out more about the life-saving work of UK-Med visit here