The war in Ukraine has already left behind hundreds of dead, thousands of displaced people and millions of people affected by power cuts, but in addition to these victims there are others who are perhaps more silenced and who, according to several NGOs, are being one of the main sectors of the population affected: the elderly.
The Russian invasion of Ukrainian territory has deepened the needs of the country’s elderly, a sector which accounts for almost a quarter of the Ukrainian population and which has seen how overnight their ability to receive medical care, continue with the monitoring of their illnesses or obtain the medicines they need has been reduced or even eliminated.
Thus, in addition to the compromise to their health, there is also the inability, in many cases physically, to flee the conflict zones, forcing the adult population to remain in dilapidated housing, where their lives are in grave danger.
The alternatives to staying in their homes are not encouraging either, as there is the option of looking for rented housing at a very high price, or having to stay in state institutions that are overwhelmed and without the necessary staff to provide the care required by the displaced people there, especially the elderly.
In fact, Amnesty International has visited seven homes for the elderly with disabilities and has concluded that these facilities are indeed not prepared to provide the care required by older adults.
However, other independent Ukrainian organizations have pointed out that these shortcomings existed before the Russian invasion, but have only increased since February, when the lack of staff in particular has been exacerbated.
Amnesty has collected the testimonies of some elderly residents in these centers, such as the case of Liudmila, a 79 year-old woman in a nursing home in the Kharkov region, who complains of being «abandoned».
This version is confirmed by Olga Volkova, director of a center for elderly people with disabilities in Dnipro, who denounces that the conditions in this type of centers are such that the elderly are kept lying in their beds «until they die».
ACCESS TO MEDICAL TREATMENT Along with the lack of a safe home, elderly Ukrainians have to cope with the lack of medicines and adequate health care to meet their needs. Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) has confirmed that the majority of patients arriving at its mobile clinic in Kharkov are elderly women.
For the most part, these women — known as ‘babushkas’ — have disabilities such as limited mobility, hearing or sight loss. In normal situations this might be linked to age-related ailments, but some of these cases are the result of untreated chronic diseases.
MSF has found that there are certain patients with high blood pressure or diabetes who, in other contexts, would be hospitalized for specialized care. «Here, it’s simply not possible,» explained the head of MSF’s medical team in Kharkov, Gino Manciati.
Along with hypertension, diabetes is another of those diseases that the context of war is causing to cause problems with mobility, eyesight or muscle function. The ongoing conflict prevents some from having access to medication, while others are not even able to control their diet.
Manciati has pointed out that, in addition to women with illnesses, MSF clinics are full of other elderly women who come to the centers in search of medicines for their male relatives who have been wounded on the front lines.
«These elderly women come to us from far away, not only for themselves, but for their husbands or sons, who cannot reach our teams,» explained Dr. Manciati in a statement released by Médecins Sans Frontières.
But above all these illnesses, there is perhaps one that stands out above all, namely the psychological wounds left by the conflict on the older population. Human rights organizations are providing mental health care to those who need it.
Médecins Sans Frontières has also collected the testimony of some of the elderly women it treats, who have recounted their state of stress. «I still can’t sleep (…) In the dark of the night, the missiles fly over the buildings,» admitted Raisa, a 68-year-old woman whose nervous system is being «destroyed» by the situation.
The main mission of the Médecins Sans Frontières employees is to control the stressful situation of their patients, helping them to normalize their normally high blood pressure, and to facilitate certain mechanisms for coping with episodes of anxiety or panic attacks.
In these conditions, Amnesty International has even warned that the elderly Ukrainians are suffering the «disproportionate impact» of the war, and warned that, with the imminent arrival of winter, especially harsh in Eastern Europe, «the international community must act urgently to strengthen support for this group of people».
«Now that the cold winter months have arrived, older people must be evacuated to accessible shelters, and priority must be given to repairing their homes,» said Amnesty International researcher Laura Mills, who specializes in issues related to the elderly and disabled.
In the same vein, the UN Under-Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs and since March in charge of mediating a humanitarian ceasefire in Ukraine, Martin Griffiths, has warned that attacks on the Ukrainian energy grid put vulnerable people, such as the elderly, at greater risk.
Russia’s armed forces have redoubled their offensive on Ukraine in recent weeks, setting the country’s energy infrastructure as one of their main targets. Ukrainian authorities have recently acknowledged that more than 50 percent of the facilities have been damaged by Russian attacks.
This leaves Ukraine in a more than compromised position where snow is beginning to accumulate in the cities and thousands of internally displaced persons, including the elderly, are now adding the weather conditions to the already complicated situation they have been facing to date.
