At a health center in the Ukrainian frontline town of Bakhmut, doctor Elena Molchanova ushers patients into a cramped office heated by a wood stove, where she administers medication and fills out a death certificate.
Sometimes her visitors – the last residents left in the city every day and cut off from essential services – just seek shelter from the cold.
The 40-year-old doctor is one of only five left in Bakhmut, which is now a lifeline for about 8,000 people who local officials say are still in the town.
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Bakhmut has been at the heart of a grinding war between Russian and Ukrainian forces in recent months in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region that Moscow wants to take full control of.
While the city was bustling with a pre-war population of about 70,000, the hallways of the Molchanova clinic were bright, with running toilets and a welcoming desk.
For now, he is confined to a single office, with piles of medical equipment, sacks of potatoes and papers piled up around him.
He worried that the large window behind the desk might shatter if one of the shells that hit the city got too close.
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But he has no plans to leave.
“When I entered medical school, I took the Hippocratic oath, and I cannot betray these people,” he told AFP.
“They come here for medical care, and we give them the best.”
– Elderly and disabled –
Many of those still living amid the fighting in Bakhmut and the nearby town of Soledar – described by a top Ukrainian official as the “bloodiest” since Russia invaded last February – are elderly or infirm.
Molchanova said the availability of drugs and equipment, especially for psychiatric problems or chronic conditions like diabetes, is sporadic at best.
Supplies depend on whether they come from the ministry of health, non-profits, or even recover from bombed buildings – like the two wheelchairs that the soldiers carried on Wednesday afternoon.
“It’s first come first served,” Molchanova said.
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“There are not enough insulin syringes and insulin needles. The heart medicine runs out very quickly. There is enough paracetamol but it cannot treat the patient.
Although Molchanova is not always able to provide medical care, she, her husband and two other doctors also provide relief to the residents of Bakhmut by welcoming them into the basement warren next to the health center where they live.
The low-ceilinged, light-filled rooms are lined with thick piles of wood piled high to fuel the stove.
With a generator in hand, residents can charge their phones and access the now rare internet connection because they escape the biting cold.
The icy weather may mean Molchanova no longer has to worry about refrigerating insulin, but the temperature has left residents suffering from colds or stove burns.
– Continuous deployment –
For others, it has killed and often Molchanova who fills out several death certificates every day.
Oleksiy Stepanov came to the doctor for a death certificate for his 83-year-old neighbor, who died in a house where a window had been blown out.
“People are scared,” Stepanov said.
Tetiana, who asked not to give her last name, came to get medicine for her neighbor, an 81-year-old man who is deaf, blind and sleeping.
“They don’t know that there’s a war, that we’re being thrown out,” he said.
After being paid by his family to take care of him, he remains now of his own free will.
“I’m afraid that this old man will bring it. He is in no condition to travel,” he said. “I will not go.”
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That’s Molchanova’s sentiment.
Although he didn’t understand why some people didn’t run away, especially families with children, he felt that they stayed and cared for him.
“As long as he’s here, I’ll be here.”
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