“I have health issues, but I keep putting off going to the doctor… until it gets really bad,” says Olha, a woman from the northeastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv who has taken refuge in a small town in Zakarpattia Oblast, in the southwest of the country.
Just like many other displaced people, she lives temporarily at a public space facilitated by the local authorities. “It's very difficult adapting to these new living conditions. You’re used to living alone in your own apartment and now it’s like living in a dormitory. For the kids it’s even more complicated,” says Olha. “But we try to support and help each other.”
In June, MSF teams based in Uzhhorod city started visiting different locations in this oblast (administrative division) to run mobile clinics where displaced communities gather. In Zakarpattia alone there are currently 128,000 internally displaced people registered out of the 6.5 million who have fled from their homes in the whole of Ukraine .
They are scattered across different towns and villages. Some try to find private accommodations to rent, but prices are high, so they end up living two or three families in the same rented apartment.
Others have exhausted their resources. “We see cases of people who need care, but they don't ask for it. Sometimes they are worried because they don't think it's free,” says Ksenia, a volunteer psychologist.