So that no hospital has to stop operating: the Kyiv City State Administration explained how preparations for winter at medical facilities are progressing

Preparation of the capital’s healthcare facilities within the capable network is ongoing. At the same time, as Tetiana Mostepan, director of the Kyiv City State Administration’s Department of Health, said on air at KyivFM , work is currently underway to improve what has already been done, reports UNN. 

Of course, we are strengthening the entire healthcare system, and accordingly, we are not expecting anything good from this winter. Therefore, all facilities are not only equipped with generators, but also with backup generators. We have planned for no facility to stop operating, regardless of any scenarios that may unfold in the city of Kyiv. This concerns engineering networks, generators, fuel supplies, medication supplies, and food supplies. In other words, all areas have been fully taken into account, and each healthcare facility in the city of Kyiv within the capable network, in accordance with its schedules, response plan, and everything else, is not merely preparing… We have already been improving all these things because we have been ready for this for a long time, but now, understanding the vulnerabilities that may arise, we are strengthening every possible area

As UNN wrote, full autonomy includes not only provision with backup power sources, but also autonomous heating (its own boiler rooms or the ability to quickly connect to mobile boiler rooms in the event of interruptions in centralized heating), as well as its own water source.  

At the same time, Mostepan acknowledged that there had been certain delays in strengthening the autonomy of some healthcare facilities. These are hospitals located in the historic part of the city, where preparing project documentation, for example, for drilling a water well, requires bureaucratic issues to be resolved. However, she said that 17 wells have now been launched at 13 healthcare service locations.

"We clearly understand that a well is not simply water for people to drink; it is the operation of surgical units, the functioning of departments and sterilization units, and the operation of emergency departments," Mostepan explained. 

Work is also continuing to strengthen hospitals’ autonomy in terms of heat supply. 

"Last winter, we used the mobile boiler rooms of the city of Kyiv, but given the scale of the needs and the risks of outages resulting from this, of course, each such boiler room is extremely important for the city of Kyiv. Therefore, we are trying to make every healthcare facility completely independent of everything," Mostepan said. 

According to the director of the Kyiv City State Administration’s Department of Health, the city allocated substantial funds to strengthen the resilience of healthcare facilities, while the Ministry of Health and the World Health Organization also provided assistance. 

According to Mostepan, work to strengthen autonomy at all facilities within the capital’s capable network is expected to be completed by the end of November. 

We remind you 

As the director of the Kyiv Perinatal Center, Professor Dmytro Hovsyeiev, said in an interview, the facility had installed its own autonomous boiler room even before the start of the full-scale invasion. 

"Even before the full-scale invasion, we were offered the installation of a pellet boiler room independent of the centralized heating supply. It is also cheaper. 

Today, we are probably the only maternity hospital that can operate completely autonomously. Our own boiler room. Our own well—the water is always available, even when there is nothing else. Water reserves. A food unit that operates without an external power supply. Generators at every branch," he said . 

The facility also has fully equipped shelters operating at two of its branches, where doctors can deliver babies and perform operations.