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Rochester doctors are sending medical supplies to help Ukrainians as the war continues

(From left to right) Dr. Alex Paciorkowski, Dr. Olga Grygorieva, Dr. Yuliya Snyder. Paciorkowski and Snyder have founded the Ukraine Medical Relief Fund, one local non-profit that collects funds and donations to buy and deliver medicine and supplies to Ukraine. Grygorieva's is one of physicians in Ukraine whose clinic uses the donated supplies.
Racquel Stephen
/
WXXI News
(From left to right) Dr. Alex Paciorkowski, Dr. Olga Grygorieva, Dr. Yuliya Snyder. Paciorkowski and Snyder have founded the Ukraine Medical Relief Fund, one local non-profit that collects funds and donations to buy and deliver medicine and supplies to Ukraine. Grygorieva is one physician in Ukraine whose clinic uses the donated supplies.

It’s been almost seven months since Russia invaded Ukraine, resulting in thousands of deaths, destruction throughout the country and an exodus of millions of people.

The devastation has moved many people, including local health care professionals, to provide support.

The nonprofit Ukraine Medical Relief Fund, organized under the Rochester Regional Health Foundations, is among the groups collecting donations to buy and deliver medicine and medical supplies to clinics across Ukraine.

“What is needed is changing and evolving based on the needs dictated by disruptions, the logistics, and the actual situation in the region,” said Dr. Yuliya Snyder, a pediatric neurologist at RRH who founded the fund almost six months ago with Dr. Alex Paciorkowski, a pediatric neurologist with URMC.

In a news conference Friday, Snyder said the organization averages about two shipments a month. Supplies range from over-the-counter medications to prescription drugs and antibiotics. She said their current project is securing an ambulance for a pediatric hospital.

“We have several requests, and we continuously are getting them,” Snyder said.

Dr. Olga Grygorieva, one of the physicians in Ukraine who uses the supplies to treat her patients, was in Rochester on Friday to take care of health care needs, and to take a break from the war.

Speaking as Snyder translated, Grygorieva described the conditions in Ukraine as dreadful and surreal.

“It’s absolutely terrible, and hard to believe that it’s happening,” Grygorieva said. “I try to help everyone, and they’re always very grateful and very appreciative.”

Grygorieva said she sees an average of 20 patients a day, six days a week. Despite the threat of warfare, she said she’s never stopped providing medical aid to patients, and she remains fearless and optimistic.

“I believe that everything’s going to be all right,” she said, “Obstacles that will make us stronger and a more coherent nation.”

On this trip to Rochester, Grygorieva will return to Ukraine with more medical supplies provided by the relief fund. Paciorkowski said monetary donations are needed -- and preferred as the process of getting supplies to the respective clinics is much quicker that way.

Racquel Stephen is a health and environment reporter. She holds a bachelor's degree in English literature from the University of Rochester and a master's degree in broadcasting and digital journalism from the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University.