The MSF #MedicalTrain. Never done before by @Ukrzaliznytsia or @MSF. So, what it is? All explained in this thread... 🧵 8 regular Ukrainian railway carriages, converted into:
1 Intensive Care Unit
2 hospitalisation carriages
2 less-critical patient carriages
1 oxygen-production carriage
1 electricity-generator carriage
1 staff sleeping carriage
Total nearly 200m long (without the locomotive)

.@MSF is supporting the medical and humanitarian response in #Ukraine and providing medical care to people who have been caught up in the fighting or have been forced to flee. In many conflicts where MSF works, we have faced situations where people try to undermine our credibility - to limit people's access to medical care by challenging the credibility of MSF, and more particularly of our medical staff.

On 4 April, our four-person @MSF team visited #Mykolaiv to meet with city and regional health authorities. At around 15.30, as we entered the city’s oncology hospital, which has been treating the wounded since the beginning of the war, the area around the hospital came under fire "Several explosions took place in close proximity to our staff over the course of about 10 minutes,” says Michel-Olivier Lacharité, MSF head of mission in Ukraine, currently based in Odesa.

On the morning of Friday 01 April, @MSF finalized first medical train transfer of patients in #Ukraine. Nine patients in serious but stable condition were transferred from a hospital in #Zaporizhzhia, to major referral hospitals in #Lviv. We used a dedicated medical 2-carriage train that MSF has developed together with @Ukrzaliznytsia. The patients were accompanied by a team of nine MSF medical staff. All had trauma wounds sustained in and around #Mariupol.

Kate White, #MSF emergency coordinator: “We are horrified to hear reports that a hospital complex including a maternity ward in Mariupol was struck in an attack yesterday.” #Ukraine 1/6 “…While we can’t confirm that this was a targeted attack, we know from our staff that houses and hospitals have been damaged during the fighting." 2/6

MSF’s teams in Ukraine are deeply worried about the consequences of the conflict for Ukrainian people and communities. We see on the roads that tens of thousands of people are frightened and on the move. 🧵 The drastic change in context means we have had to take the painful decision to halt our activities, which included HIV care in Severodonetsk, TB care in Zhytomyr, and improving health care access in Donetsk in eastern Ukraine.