Ukraine: Live Interview with Physician at Her Clinic

Dr. Kateryna Pochtar

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Marianne O’Hare: Welcome to Conversations on Health Care with Mark Masselli and
Margaret Flinter. This week from a primary care clinic inside Rivne,
Ukraine , w e welcome Dr. Kateryna Pochtar who says between
frequent air raids and trips to the bomb shelters , they are determined
to provide continued healthcare to their patients.

Dr. Kateryna Pochtar: My patients are scared. T hey are crying in my office. As for me, I am
not scared, but I worried about my family.

Marianne O’Hare: We end with a bright id ea improving health and well being in
everyday lives . Now, here are your hosts, Mark Masselli and
Margaret Flinter.

Mark Masselli : The whole world is watching Ukraine as Russian P resident Putin’s
invasion defies all international norms. Beyond the diploma tic and
military crisis there ’s also a severe humanitarian and healthcare
situation w e must all recognize and try to deal with right now.

Margaret Flinter : Here to help us understand is Dr. Kateryna Pochtar, a primary care
physician in the Western Ukraine City of Rivne where she works in a
large clinic , what we might think of in United States as a community
health center. We are so delighted to have her here today.

Mark Masselli: Dr. Pochtar it goes without saying , but it must be said , our thoughts
and pray ers are with you and your fellow Ukrainians . Let ’ s start and
h ave you tell the audience of where you are right now and what is it
look like outside , perhaps just set the scene for us so we can have a
better understanding.

Dr. Kateryna Pochtar: Hello everyo ne . M y name is Dr. Kateryna Pochtar , Kate r for short . I
am grateful for you for the invitation here and thanks for your prayers
and thoughts about Ukraine. I live in Rivne and as you said I work in
the clinic as a primary care doctor. There is a war in Ukr aine. Russia is
attacking our country. They are bombing our cities, killing our people,
killing our children . T he houses are destroyed, hospitals are
destroyed, kindergarten s are destroyed.

Compared with s outhern and e astern part of Ukraine , Rivne is a saf e
place at the moment. Our medical center is safe. There is a bomb
shelter in the ground floor. My colleague s and me keep doing our best
to take care of our patients. Everyone is on his/her work place. When
we here an air alarm we go downstairs to the bomb shelter. Patient s
and medical staff are staying in the bomb shelter as along as it is
needed. Then we come back to our offices and continue and again
and again w e work, hide, work , hide.

My patients are scared. They are crying in my office. As for me, I a m
not scared, but I worried about my family. I am thinking about them

Dr. Kateryna Pochtar

all the time. My parents and my brother and his wife and little son are
in small town , Enerhodar . There is a nuclear power plant there .
Russians are just on the entrance of this city. Pe ople are hiding. It ’ s
unbelievable, nuclear power plant it ’ s so dangerous to attack this
town, but anyway. My kids are with their grandmother in the village
also hiding. I can ’t see them , I can ’t hug them , I can ’ t feel them , t hey
need my love and support s o much , but I am so far. This is how we are
work ing and living these days.

Mark Masselli: Thank you.

Margaret Flinter: Well, Dr. Pochtar , we can ’t say that we understand and that we have
never been though this, but we can say that we send you our deepest
e mpathy and want to really make sure we can get your messages out
to all our listeners and also just continue to share with people what
you are going through. I am so glad that you are not yet hit. We hope
you will not be hit in your polyclinic , but when yo u described this,
hide and come back to work, hide and come back to work, we know
the stress is enormous.

I can ’t help, but wonder if you aren’t going to be called into service to
participate as a surgery lead for the hospitals and clinics that are hurt.
A re you preparing for that, you anticipat e the patient will be
transferred to you who ’ve been wounded in the attacks ? Do you have
any access capacity in terms of supplies and materials and staff to be
able to accept people from other areas ? T ell us a little bit about that.

Dr. Kateryna Pochtar: Most of Rivne Hospitals are preparing to accept a large number of
injured patients. Yeah, t hey are ready. As for all medicines and
supplies, I ’ m just a primary care doctor and I can ’ t tell you exact
information. If yo u want to know about our needs, I can contact the
administration and give you this information. As for our medical
center, we have enough of medicines at the moment. I do n’ t know
what will be going to happen tomorrow. Might be we will have some
break . Okay .

Mark Masselli: No problem. Can you tell us about how the M inistry of H ealth is doing
in its ability to help coordinate healthcare support across the country ?
H as that communication been broken off or are you able to -- is the
large health system able to communicate across the country ?

Dr. Kateryna Pochtar: Ministry of Health communicate s with us, but also we Ukrainians
quickly and efficiently organized ourselves. We have volunteer
centers , and everyday administration and volunteer centers are share
the li st of medicines and other st u ff that are needed . P eople bring
such stuff to volunteer centers . Rivne r egion helps to other regions of
Ukraine with this staff b ecause other regions really need supply.

Margaret Flinter: Dr. Pochtar , we know the backbone of y our polyclinic, in particular

Dr. Kateryna Pochtar

with your focus on primary care , of course , is its staff , y our doctors
and your nurses, you respiratory therapist, your pharmacist, keeping
people able to move forward , resilient wh ile they know that the ir own
families are suf fering is one of the great leadership challenges of any
of us in health care. Tell us maybe a little bit about how you are
keeping your staff as your polyclinic able to move forward , are you
meeting regularly as a group ? Is there is no time for that ? A r e p eople
trying to support each other ? H ave you had staff who had to leave
and go out of country to be with their families ? M aybe share a little
bit about the experience of your staff at the polyclinic .

Dr. Kateryna Pochtar: We are doing our best to support e ach other . We are doing our best
to support our patients , and also patients support us and we really
appreciate it. They asked , what do you need , c an I h elp with
something ? Of course , we do not have some skills. We don ’ t know
how to support correctly in su ch specific situation, but we just do our
best . Speak with each other , asked do you need something , how are
you , and it really helps.

Mark Masselli: Well t hat is so important and it raises the question about every ones ’
mental health and whether or not the re is enough support to provide
for people who are in treatment for depression or anxiety. What are
you able to do and are there any other types of interventions that
could be helpful , perhaps telehealth or other ways to give some relief
to the population, not only the population , but also to the work force
at the clinic ?

Dr. Kateryna Pochtar: Of course , everyone is stressed in Ukraine right now. Of course , it
provokes different disorders , anxiety attacks, depression ,
d ecompensation of chronic disease and I am talking about patients
and also I am talking about doctors, nurses . O f course , we have some
knowledge and skills how to assist in such situations , and we do our
best, but we have some problems.

For example, some people are afraid to go out because an a ir alarm
could start on the way to the clinic and what to do, where to hide,
that’s why some patients haven’t got access to medical care . W e just
do not know what will happen tomorrow , and so we are stressed and
upset a little bit.

Margaret Flinter: Well t he stress level must be just extraordinary for you, for your
coworkers and for all of your patients and all of the people in Ukraine.
I was struck in your opening comments when you talked about how
you are responding, hiding as you need to , coming back out to the
clinic when you can.

I heard that you ’ ve gotten some training from E uropean Civil
Protection and Humanitarian Aid Operations group known as E CHO .
Tell us has this been helpful ? Was that all just very recently or have

Dr. Kateryna Pochtar

you had that kind of emergency preparedness planning a long the way
that gave you at least some structure for how to respond in this
situation today ?

Dr. Kateryna Pochtar: E CHO g ives us necessary knowledge and skills. We have Zoom
meeting s every two weeks. We listen to speaker s and discu ss
problems with colleagues. E very one can ask some question and get
an answer . D ue to ECHO I feel my colleague s support and it inspires
me. I really appreciate such Zoom meeting s and t hank you .

Mark Masselli: Well , w e have -- our organizations have known each other for five
years working on an ECHO with Dr. Rick Altice and we also give thanks
to Dr. Sanjeev Arora who is the founder of ECHO , but it ’ s been so
important for all of us as it important tool at all times , but more
important in this times.

I do wa nt to sort of note that US Agency for International
Development has sent d isaster response team to Poland . It ’s
coordinating the regional humanitarian response . Our state
department is also providing nearly $54 million in additional
assistance . B ut tell us on the ground what more can we do , what ’ s
most critical in your mind in terms of the support people can provide
around the world.

Dr. Kateryna Pochtar: It ’ s hard to say . I ’ m just a doctor , I ’ m not politic or military or a head
of hospital. Our greatest ho pe is to stop the war , and of course I think
we will need some supply of medicine s . It is enough right now , but it
is only beginning, the seventh day of the war . W e appreciate the
support of the entire world which stand with Ukraine and it is really
import ant for us.

Margaret Flinter: Dr. Pochtar I hope you feel that support . W e want to keep this line of
communication open with you . Here in the United States t here is a
national network of community health center s , t hey care for almost
40 million people. I k now that they are going to be very focused on
what you are experienced and going through and in terms of
knowledge or skills and other tangible resources I know that we stand
ready to try and help you.

I wonder if I could just ask when these things happene d , it ’ s not like
your weren’t already fully busy doing what you were doing to try and
meet the healthcare needs of the people that your polyclinic serves. I
understand COVID has been hugely problematic in your country as in
the United States . Y ou likely ha ve thousands of people with COVID
today , bab ies continued to born, people have their emergencies . Do
you feel like that level of what we call that the daily care , right, the
nuts and bolts, do you have enough to continue with that work that
people are acco unting on you for ?

Dr. Kateryna Pochtar

Dr. Kateryna Pochtar: We are ready to continue all that we did before and we do our best
for doing it. Everyone is on his / her workplace. We work as we work
before . I want to tell you that on my work I feel better , s eriously .
Wh en I ’ m alo ne at home it isn’t comfortable and here it ’s like an
illusion of usual life.

Mark Masselli: Well, thank you Dr. Pochtar and your are , as all Ukrainians are , so
brave in this moment and we want to thank our audience for jo ining
us to talk about this Russia n invasion . A lso we ’re going to post for all
American s to see ways that you can help the Ukrainian people . A gain ,
thank you so much and to your collages in your clinic , t hank them for
their bravery and the work they do.

Dr. Kateryna Pochtar: Thank you.

Mar k Masselli: Well thank you for making time . W e will really appreciate it and it ’ s
such a tragedy and as you said the most important thin g is to end the
war.

Margaret Flinter: Mark, I think we and all our colleagues can appreciate that in the
midst of this there is comfort in being able to provide the kind of help
that people need . I so appreciate what Dr. Pochtar and her colleague
are doing to continue everyday serving on the frontlines of
healthcare.

Mark Masselli: Yeah, a nd I think all of our colleague s w ho work in community health
centers who are healthcare provider , I think we were just -- our heart
went out when she said hide and then work, hide and work.

Margaret Flinter: Hide , work , and m issing your family all the while .

Mark Masselli: Y eah . Thank you Kateryna , t hank you so much . W e ’ ll stay in touch and
look forward to hearing f rom you on things that we can do as the
situation evolves .

Dr. Kateryna Pochtar: I hope everything will be al l right and we will w o n. We will do
anything to protect our native c ountry. Thank you , bye.

Mark Masselli: Good bye .

Margaret Flinter: Thank you.