Adam Szyszkaa 45-year-old Polish paramedic, is a busy man. In a matter of hours, you will receive at the transit medical center Jasionkalocated in a huge warehouse next to the runways of Rzeszow airport, just a 90 kilometers from the border with Ukraineto dozens of patients who had recently arrived by road from the neighboring country at war. These are wounded on the war front or civilian casualties of the Russian bombings against the cities, although also of Ukrainian patients suffering from serious illnesses who cannot receive proper treatment in their places of origin. They will barely pass a few hours in these facilities, equipped with medicalized rooms carefully prepared in advance, before being transferred by air to Germany, Denmark o Norwaywhere its income in local hospitals.
Adam exudes enthusiasm when explaining the work done by the staff working at the Medevac hub, financed in a 95% by funds from the European Union (EU)and among those who are translators, paramedics and even psychologists. The patient evacuation process takes place in three phases: in the first week, “Ukraine sends a request to Emergency Response Coordination Center“(ERCC, for its acronym in English), which looks for “potential destination hospitals” in kyiv’s allied countries. In the second week, this information is processed and a range of options is transferred to the patient, who normally, for logistical reasons, chooses the country “nearest” to Ukraine, in order to facilitate family visits, he details. Finally, in the third week, patients are transferred from their cities of residence, concentrating them at a “collection point in Lviv”, in Western Ukrainefrom where they are brought in a “ambulance bus up to here,” Adam graphically details with the help of a marker in front of a map of Europe.
Paramedic Adam Szyszka illustrates the evacuation process of Ukrainian patients on the map. / MARC MARGINEDAS
It is a task with great ups and downs, which requires a lot of planning. more laborious than a natural disaster or accident. In an earthquakeFor example, “we can make calculations about the extent and population affected,” and predict the number of patients we will treat, while a war “is totally unpredictable,” he explains. Regarding numbers, Adam can only determine the total number of patients that have passed through their hands, and the percentages of groups of patients: of the almost 4,000 that have been treated to date at the Medevac Jasionka hub: a 60% are patients of traumatologyin particular amputation cases30% people suffering from oncological ailmentsand the remaining 10% with other diagnoses.
Psychological aspect
It is important, however, not to neglect the psychological aspects of the treatment. The facility has an extensive collection of books in Polish and Ukrainian to maintain “the busy head” of the sick. And these are individuals who, in many cases, “have never left the country or have not even traveled on a plane,” so any incident can rekindle recent traumas given the presence in many of them of Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome (PTSD). In one of the wings of the center you can even find games, toys y children’s tablesjust like in a small nursery.
Paramedic Adam Szyszka shows an ambulance bus. / MARC MARGINEDAS
The Medevac hub is but one part of the deep transformation that has experienced the facility that, in the winter of 2022, practically overnight, went from being a small polish regional airport to become a huge logistics center that had to manage large devices such as Boeing 747s, Lockheed C-130 y Antonov 225 -the largest plane in the world-, and even hosting European political leaders stopping in Poland before continuing their journey to kyiv. “Before the invasion we carried out 20 operations per day, now that number has doubled,” say management sources. “Everyone has passed through here,” continue these sources, who do not specify whether the president’s plane Volodímir Zelenski It is based on this place.
The mutation has been accompanied by major changes in the organization. If before the start of hostilities they worked at the airfield less than 300 peoplenow exceed the 550. The fuel storage tanks have been expanded, and in order to prevent flights from accumulating at peak times, airport authorities have sometimes been forced to replan flights. Spokesmen insist that Jasionka is no military airportand that its certificate stipulates that it is a “civil” infrastructure. However, the proximity with Ukraine invaded and cross-border incidents with drones launched from neighboring Russia have forced extreme precautions. On the margins of the slopes, they are identified anti-aircraft missile batterieswhile workers do not seem concerned about incidents with unmanned aircraft. “We are protected,” they conclude, apparently unconcerned.
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