she saw something that is hard for even a doctor to remember. she knows that there is a lot of pain and a sea of ​​children's tears. in the first days of the occupation of buch, she and her husband provided medical care there. now she helps. wounded soldiers to recover and get back on their feet, deals with their rehabilitation. today i have as a guest a national legend of ukraine, a doctor, a pediatrician, and today a rehabilitator, olga svyst. olya, i congratulate you, today i have a guest. congratulations irina. a very interesting path and very, probably, difficult, because if it imagine, from a pediatrician, a private clinic to a mobilized... medic, i want

you to share with our viewers today your experience, the experience of war that you already have, and i want to start from february 24 , 2022 , where were they at that time and how did they end up, strictly speaking, the buchis? on february 24, we were at home, we lived in the city of irpin, that is... which is located next to the city of bucha, and my daughter was sick, at that time she had a high temperature, and accordingly i did not sleep at night, and i must have heard for the first time how to whistle rocket over our city, and about 30-40 minutes later in the medical community, in one of the parts, i read that the first rockets landed at boryspil airport, and my first words were when i woke up my husband, that the war had begun. wake up, and of course, as

a mother, i wanted first of all to protect my children and give them safety, but i am a doctor, so accordingly in the morning a nanny came and my husband and i went to our workplaces, it was a difficult way to the city of kyiv, so that the city was already being evacuated, it was a long road, and at that moment i took it upon myself shared responsibility for accepting children at the reception. our clinics, because the polyclinics were closed and, accordingly, the flow of children was in the reception department, and here at the appointment of the pediatrician, probably the last working day at the previous place of work, i looked through the window and understood that all these children were going somewhere, it is not known where, they are all sick, and i had to decide then how to plan their treatment, whether with an examination in a few days or. it is not known when,

and already at that moment i understood that it was unknown when, that is why the treatment was prescribed a little more than usual, somewhere around lunchtime i received a call from the military mother that i was being called for mobilization as a military medic, i had to show up with my things within a day, i asked for time, a day for that , to take the children to a safer place to their parents, which is how my first day of full-scale invasion actually began. but in the evening, when we got home and entered the house, the shelling began, so for the first time we went down to the basement with the children from the 12th floor, it was too noisy, and i wanted protect the psyche of my children, and when they asked me, my son, mother, what is this, i found a solution for myself, that it is a game of who will go down to the basement first, and when we went down to the basement, i will see... that my children in pajamas,

i only have their documents with me, which i managed to take, and i understood that it was a basement, it was cold, and i should go home to take some. things, this is the first mistake, because in principle we were preparing and knew that something would happen, and it was worth packing that anxious suitcase, now i am analyzing it, what is it worth was to be done, but at that moment i calmed down and went up to the 12th floor without using the elevator according to the previous recommendations given to the civilian population, packed those alarming suitcases and the next morning tried to evacuate the children from... from irpin, from kyiv region. we succeeded, it was a long way, and already on february 26 we returned to the city of irpin, and literally in an hour we made a decision that we, upon request, again in the medical communities , will join the medics who receive the wounded

first civilians and military . yes we are ended up in buchi. can you tell us about those first days of training, what did you do there and who exactly did you help? i had the idea that this is a gray area, that is, there is a front line where active battles are being fought, and there are hospitals and doctors are not affected, that is, it is a safe place, the wounded will just come to us, but later we understood that this is completely not like that, because when automatic rounds were first heard under the windows, in the nearby streets... columns of heavy equipment passed and we could see them and even count them, fighter jets flew over us and we saw how it landed landing from enemy helicopters, of course, this concept was immediately dispelled. we were engaged in providing help to all those who

needed it, both civilians, and from the tro group, and with the armed forces, who were injured during the defense of the airport. there were also injured children, since the hospital did not work with children, because it was not a children's hospital, so i dealt with children, both injured and those who simply had an illness and needed medical help, and they ended up in this institution , i first came across gunshot and landmine wounds in children, and i had no experience before that, so we were looking for some kind of network and i... called my colleagues, was interested in how to act so as not to harm, how to make the right decisions in the treatment of children. it was the first time i saw the amputation of limbs in children, and i had to find words to talk to the children, to explain, it

was difficult. i remember one girl, sofia, she lost her mother and her cat during the evacuation. and she lost her upper limb, she lost her arm. she was in the palace where there was a window. and the first thing she asked for was this close the window can i go to a smaller room? of course, we arranged it. they led to a smaller room, blocked the window. the children were afraid. we explained what the armed forces of ukraine are doing, that they are protecting us. trying to protect them from the terrible truth that we all found ourselves in, from that reality, and in one of the conversations with sophia, holding her hand, she cried and said that i was

riding, i want to continue it, and in that moment, i promised her that you will do it, you will continue, we will leave here, you will have a hand protest, and you will be able to do it, i definitely... don't know that you can, and so looking ahead, everything really worked out for sofia, sofia survived, evoked with us from buchi, and she got prosthetics abroad, and even dreamed of writing the book, and she wrote it like that and published it, it's called don't be a disaster, there were also other children, you continue to communicate with sofia in the same way. we are in touch with virtually everyone who was in bucha at the time, and whom we evacuated, especially with all the children, and together with their relatives, accordingly we are very proud of their achievements, there were also children who simply

had various acute conditions that needed medical assistance, and i am proud of those... parents who, despite the fact that it was extremely dangerous to move around the city after 5 o'clock, made a decision to save the children's health and at night they got to the doctor. but this is what probably everyone experiences in ukraine, when one part of your relatives is at home, and with the other you have to go to another city, and at this time you have danger above you, bullets are flying, now rockets are flying, and here we gave them first aid, stabilized the child's condition, and they cannot be left, they don't want to, they want to go home, because they are waiting for them. other relatives, they are worried about them, this family was also evacuated, after

a few days they wrote to us that they had left, everyone survived, it was very happy news for us, of course, although we were still under occupation at that time, patients also came , civilians, wounded who were trying to find food or water for themselves, and they were shot on the street, or... they put grenades under their feet, we had a veteran of sometimes the mechanism of who receives patients at the reception department, who calls a team of surgeons, who collects information, whether there are relatives or not, and we worked in this format for about two weeks. did you manage to save everyone, who exactly did you save, and what was this evacuation like? it was not the first time. that is, we were notified of the first day of evacuation, but i was taking care of the children in

the vast majority, and my understanding was that on the first day it is not worth going, and this evacuation probably will not happen, the square gathered a lot of people, and that planned route, the green corridor, it didn't happen, that is , the buses didn't come, and it was terrible, we didn't collect. people because we suspected that it wouldn't happen, we didn't drag them out for the day, they stayed in the hospital building, but a lot of people were around in the square, and of course they wanted to stay here, either in the hospital or near the city hall, few people wanted to go back to the cellars for the night, because it's such a big disappointment when you've almost survived and left, and you have to go back to that cellar again, but the next day after all... with a delay in time , the buses arrived, we managed to have our own

bus for the wounded, that is, we had two buses with the wounded, and we started moving in a column with everyone, of course we instructed everyone that if there were any shelling, then we have to lean as low as possible to the floor of the bus, realizing that this... it may not save us, but glass is glass and open windows, increased danger. we had this medicine pack for each patient because we didn't know how long the evacuation would take, and each of these patients received serious treatment with antibiotics, accordingly everyone had their own prescription sheet and these medicines. we also managed to prevent hypothermia, that is, we had blankets, because there were no clothes. everyone had the appropriate clothes, but they dressed for what was little, they took blankets, in principle, no one got cold except me, because

i must have had adrenaline, i was very cold during the evacuation, and here i was turning to the first turn, at the intersection by the bus, at night the automatic queue passed, such a sound, accordingly we all fell to the floor, but then exhaled, it was a burning car, cargo, military, and accordingly, glass or the remains of some other parts simply passed along the seam of our bus, and we continued to move in a column, we were stopped once more on the zhytomyr highway, our route was changed, because that route, which was supposed to run to the left, it was destroyed, cars were blown up there. the fire was burning, accordingly, we stood for a while on this road, on the open

road, it was scary, at that moment i was making a list to send to the welfare clinic, who could receive the most difficult patients for evacuation, we had seven of the most difficult patients, uh, i will be grateful for the rest of my life to my colleagues who immediately responded and said, we will take everyone not... and that is , when we were standing, when we were driving, we formed a clear plan, where we will send these two buses of wounded, to which hospital we will send them and who will be able to take care of them. and in fact, who will take care of the wounded children, enemy tanks passed by us, we really didn’t know how it would all end, but later on , we still got to the evening, we reached already ukrainian land, under the ukrainian flag, you know, my first feelings were

that when i got off the bus, i was in a white coat, although i understood that it did not give any... such guarantees absolutely, but it still defined me as a doctor, and when we came home to the e- evacuation point, and i go to her ambulance, the ambulance brigade, i say: i have 20 wounded people there, i need 10 cars there, at least to evacuate them, you have two here, i say, take them half, they say, we can't, this is our... aid point, we can't move, and we had to quickly to move, it was already evening, they are tired, they need to be given medicine, it is cold, it is march, and i approach a policeman, i say, can you help me escort the buses so that we go through kyiv through roadblocks freely and quickly, they are waiting for us in the city in kyiv

, in such and such hospitals, they agreed on everything. our route and we, accompanied by the police, drove through the entire part of kyiv, where we were already at the point of transferring patients from our regular bohdan buses to specialized medical transport, actually so we got to different hospitals with the patients, and the patients got to the regional hospital, and they got to dobrobut, they got to the 17th hospital, olya, here... this experience of yours, which you just talked about, the experience that you received already during war, how he helped you already now in the rehabilitation of the military, er, i would say that it was the beginning, er, the beginning of my formation as another doctor, at that moment, having a call with

the military and having experience of occupation in the buch from various ... kind of injuries and making quick decisions, uh, that was the beginning of why i'm in rehabilitation, for the first time i saw children with amputations, i saw people with amputations, with injuries of the spinal cord, chest, combined injuries, and i understood that i want to be in this direction and help them, that is, you yourself chose this direction of rehabilitation, you decided so , that you... i didn't get there right away, at first i had a place of service in a military unit, as the head of the medical service, and my work there was a little different, i had experience in providing emergency care in civilian conditions, we went through it every six months in in our clinic, it was a rule that we had first aid skills,

but military medicine is completely different. and one of my areas of work was also to master the provision of assistance in tactical medicine, according to military protocols, but over time, my fate turned out to be such that i got into the field of military rehabilitation, and for the second year i have been working in this field, and it seems to me that i am in my place, so you have been working for the second year? and what can you say about this direction in general, what are the main challenges you face every day, so to speak about rehabilitation? the main challenge is our soldiers, these are ukrainians, these are our boys and girls who defend our borders and our freedom, and the main challenge is how quickly

to restore them, how to return them to society. or how to return them to the place of service, however , the vast majority of injuries are quite complex, and the rehabilitation process is long, and given the nature of the injuries, not all boys can return to military service, accordingly , one of the main challenges not only for me, but globally for us as ukrainians, it is integration veterans, well... not only veterans, but people who suffered from the war in ukraine, into society, and to ensure that they understand that they are extremely important people in our society, and we owe them great gratitude. to create comfortable conditions for them, now we have many barriers, and this is not only in rehabilitation, but

in general in moving around the city, yes, well, for example, a serviceman, or just a person with reduced mobility who moves in a wheelchair, and or his daughter walks to school, it would be very important for us to create as a society. the conditions so that this veteran or just someone with reduced mobility can get to this school without obstacles without assistance, or for example the restrooms, are we always able to get to the restrooms as disabled people, no, not always, that's a problem, it's there is a problem not only in cities, it is also a problem in administrative institutions, in institutions. of education in medical institutions, now a textbook on barrier-free accessibility was recently announced, where various institutions were analyzed and

specific recommendations were issued, as possible depending on from what we build or what we change, and that's important, to me a veteran who moves around either in a wheelchair or with the help of prostheses is to me an ordinary person, like any of us, who occupies the same niche in society, and i have come to the point of understanding that when i enter an establishment, the first thing i automatically do is check with my foot whether there is a threshold, you already estimate the width of the door with your eyes, the passage to the cafe. for example, or whether the toilet is available, whether a person can enter it, and which one i would like to give, probably my advice to all of us is

to look around your place of residence, your place of work, to understand if it is available to our veterans, probably because i work with veterans more, because that way i am more focused, of course for the people who have suffered from the war, because the civilian population also suffers a lot, we constantly see information, the number of victims, this is also a difficult path. hello, i want to raise the topic of not only physical rehabilitation, but also psychological rehabilitation? of course, if we talk about rehabilitation, it is not only physical rehabilitation is also the rehabilitation of mental health, and its restoration, in fact, a psychologist works in every rehabilitation program and in every rehabilitation team. it is an extremely important professional unit in the team, and the psychologist is involved

in working with the patient immediately, not when the patient enters the rehabilitation department, but also in the acute period. here it is important to understand that if we are not talking about professional help, that is, when you are not a psychologist, it is about correctness. conversations with a patient with severe trauma, for example yes, and there is a certain algorithm on how to conduct this conversation, and of course we receive training on communication with the patient, but there are such very simple recommendations, they now exist in various spaces of the internet, other social networks, when the military themselves say, how not to to do, well, for example, i understand you. it is not quite correct, we cannot understand this particular person in this situation, because we are not that person, but we can say this: i am with you, i will walk your path with

you, it is also very important to involve the family and do not forget that the family also suffers from the trauma that one of their relatives receives, and... sometimes it is believed that when the wife or mother comes, she will provide that support, psychological and help, but this is not always the case, sometimes and the mother, or that wife, or the child also needs work with a psychologist, training, and actually this is work with the whole family or with the whole family, fighters do not always want to report their complex injuries to their relatives, in my experience there are guys, who... don't want to tell mom, and they delay this time as much as possible to inform your mother about your serious

injury. i have a fighter, he lost two hands, and he decided that he will inform his mother and actually meet her only when he receives prostheses and learns to use them, that is, he also worries about her psychological state, of course, and we we respect his decision, he has a clear plan, we support him, help to implement it, er, so yes, it is very important, and the psychologist, this is... a key point, but we all need to learn how to properly and correctly address veterans, or people who have suffered from war, and understand and understand that it is important both for us and for those who receive this help or this appeal, well, for example, it is not correct if you say, a stroller or a cart , that is, there is a defined correct concept of a wheelchair , not a blind person. and a person with

a visual impairment, it is not difficult, it is just necessary to ask ourselves how ukrainians do everything possible to be correct, yes indeed, and this is true, since we have already said today that while gaining new experience, the experience of war, we we understand that there will still be many people with injuries, many people who will receive severe injuries, which can then lead. in the future to problems, so to speak, and olya, as you can estimate, you are talking about the fact that you have been in military rehabilitation for two years, as you can estimate, during these two years there have been some colossal changes, changes for the better, so that we didn't have this experience before, that's right, this negative experience of war, and accordingly

we didn't know what... military rehabilitation is, i would say it a little differently here, we knew that such rehabilitation in military, and we simply could not imagine it on such a scale, of course, the entire medical system, it is overloaded, but i can clearly say, i have experience with foreign colleagues, and... you yourself can appreciate how rapidly we are progressing the development of prosthetics in ukraine, and how many foreigners want to come to us to have an exchange of experience and find common solutions in this direction or in other directions of rehabilitation, of course we are developing, we are developing very quickly, there is such a thing as

continuous. professional development, and we him we use, we also know how to analyze and make decisions, ukrainians also create new achievements in medicine, including, for example, i will tell such a short story, and about how incredible ukrainians are, for example, there is such a fast-protocol for determining bleeding. in case of injury, and here the ukrainians analyzed two additional points and created a protocol, fast you crayon, which is recognized throughout the world, and this happened during a full-scale invasion, these two additional diagnostic points indicate damage to the intestine, and

in this way, the surgeon receives... this is timely information that it is worth paying attention to the damaged intestine, this is during the war, so of course we are developing not only in rehabilitation, a very powerful development in the surgical direction, accordingly, rehabilitation is also a consequence of surgery , and success is such teamwork. olya, you will have such a question, it will probably be the most difficult for you. what experiences have you had while full time. headquarters invasion, which we would never want to have, to lose loved ones, to lose ukrainians, because every loss is a pain that cannot be described.