Helping at the Frontlines and Teaching Medicine in Zaporizhzhia and Sumy
- Matthew Parish
- 33 minutes ago
- 2 min read
In the midst of Ukraine’s ongoing defence efforts, one of the brightest lights has been the courageous and compassionate work of medical volunteers providing critical training and care in frontline regions. The initiative “Helping at the Frontlines and Teaching Medicine in Zaporizhzhia and Sumy” brings together experienced medical professionals and dedicated volunteers who travel into embattled areas to conduct intensive, practical courses for frontline medics, civilian first responders, and nursing staff.
Why Zaporizhzhia and Sumy?
Both regions sit at the frontline of violence—Sumy in the north and Zaporizhzhia in the south-east. In Sumy, attacks by Russian forces have forced medical services to operate in improvised “make-shift stabilisation points”—often repurposed basements or warehouses—under constant threat of shelling. Meanwhile in Zaporizhzhia, volunteer organisations like the Ukraine-Israeli Frida Mission hold clinics in villages cut off from regular healthcare, offering trauma surgery, psychological support, and support for the elderly.
Health on the Frontlines: From Emergency Response to Sustainable Training
The project focuses on a dual approach:
Tactical Medical Response: Teams operate in frontline zones, delivering trauma care—stabilisation of shrapnel wounds, limb-saving interventions, and psychological first aid—to soldiers and civilians alike under duress.
Teaching and Empowerment: Beyond frontline missions, dedicated training courses equip up to 137 medics per session with life-saving skills: tourniquet application, management of mine injuries, drone strike wounds and infection control. They include civilian and military personnel in Izyum, Sumy, Zaporizhzhia, Mykolaiv, Kherson and Kryvyi Rih.
This approach builds resilience, so that even under siege, communities can sustain basic emergency care amidst the heat of combat.
Why It Matters
Rapid evacuation gaps: With hospitals under attack or inaccessible, these training programmes mean that critically injured patients receive prompt, on-site stabilisation before evacuation.
Closing professional gaps: Volunteer medics supplement demolished or overstretched health services, especially in militarised or isolated areas.
Cultural empowerment: When volunteers share methods and protocols with local professionals, they’re strengthening long-term capacity—so that, after the war, the healthcare system is stronger than before.
Support This Life-Saving Work
If you’d like to support this essential project—helping to train frontline medical teams in Zaporizhzhia and Sumy, and deliver critical aid where it matters most—please consider donating through this link:
Your contribution will help equip responders with supplies, training materials, travel and protective equipment, and long-term capacity-strengthening support in Ukraine’s most vulnerable regions.
By supporting this project, you are standing with Ukraine’s frontline heroes—those who save lives, build resilience, and sustain hope in the face of hardship.
