Ukraine children with cancer forced to hide in basements ‘won’t survive’ if they don’t get help, doctors warn

‘We will never calculate how many patients weren’t diagnosed of a disease in time, how many patients died because they didn’t receive treatment,’ one doctor said

Children patients whose treatments are underway sit on chairs moved to the hallways of basement floors of Okhmadet Children’s Hospital (REUTERS)

Ukrainian children suffering from cancer being forced to bunker down in hospital basements “will die” if the war with Russia continues to disrupt their treatment, doctors have warned.

Young cancer patients were suddenly moved down into the basement of Okhmadet Children’s Hospital in the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv to protect them from mass Russian shelling raining down on the country.

The move interrupted treatment for many of the children and lack of supplies has meant only a basic form of chemotherapy can be administered.

“These children suffer more because they need to stay alive to fight with the cancer - and this fight cannot wait,” Dr Lesia Lysytsia told NBC News from the basement. “If the children’s cancer treatment is interrupted further by the war...our patients, they will die.”

“We will calculate how many people or soldiers have died in attacks, but we will never calculate how many patients weren’t diagnosed of a disease in time, how many patients died because they didn’t receive treatment,” Dr Lysytsia added.

“It’s an epic amount of people.”

In some circumstances, doctors at the Kyiv Regional Oncology Centre have been forced do blood transfusions from parents to children with low blood counts due to short supply, Julia Nogovitsyna, program director at Ukraine cancer charity Tabletochki, said.

She said for those who cannot wait to be evacuated, medics are working to transfer them to the Western Ukrainian Specialized Children’s Medical Center in Lviv.

A child suffering from cancer holds a sign that says “Stop War” in the bomb shelter of an oncology centre in Kyiv (AFP via Getty Images)

The children who are most desperately in need of treatment will then be moved from Lviv to Poland, where they have been promised medical care.

Fourteen patients were placed on a bus on Monday to Lyiv, who will be joined by another 20 children on a second bus before being escorted to the Polish border by police.

One couple making their way to the border had a 37-day-old baby girl, who told the broadcaster she had been born with leukemia, in tow.

A mother tends to her child who is undergoing cancer treatment in Kyiv (Getty Images)

“She is the most difficult one out of all patients,” said Ms Nogovitsyna.

“I don’t know how she will survive this.”

But evacuating the children to a medical centre in Lviv, in the west of Ukraine, where there are more medical supplies and safer conditions, is also a potentially fatal undertaking for doctors.

Dr Lysytia said: “Patients and their parents ask me if it’s safe, and I say ‘I don’t know’. I don’t even know if it’s safe to go outside. It’s possible they go out near the hospital and they’ll be attacked.”

It comes after the National Guard of Ukraine shared an image showing dozens of children huddled in an underground shelter.

“The photo the whole world should see,” it tweeted. “This is a shelter in a specialized orphanage in the city of Kropyvnytskyi in Ukraine. All the children there are orphans. Many are sick.”

Meanwhile, President Volodymyr Zelensky today urged the European Union to prove that it sided with Ukraine in its war with Russia in the wake of its bid to join the 27-member bloc.

Children including those diagnosed with cancer receiving treatment are seen as they were moved to the basement floor or the shelter of Okhmatdyt Children’s Hospital (Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)

Speaking via video link, Zelensky told the emergency session of the European Parliament: “We are fighting to be equal members of Europe.”

“Do prove that you are with us. Do prove that you will not let us go. Do prove that you are indeed Europeans and then life will win over death and light will win over darkness.”

He added: “The EU will be much stronger with us. Without you, Ukraine will be lonesome.”