The patient, whom modern medicine could no longer help, wanted above all to return to the Motherland. The life of 61-year-old Mr. Igor from Dnipro was divided into before and after in September. Then, after the examination, he heard the diagnosis: stage four lung cancer.
In the hope of finding treatment abroad, he and his wife went to Turkey. However, the man’s condition rapidly deteriorated there in a matter of days. Turkish specialists said it was impossible to help. Therefore, the wife began to look for a way to return home with her husband. But no carrier or airline would take a passenger on board in such a difficult condition. Then, in desperation, the woman called the First Medical Association of Lviv, and the specialists agreed to a trip in an ambulance.
Having prepared medicines, oxygen tanks, vital function monitors, a defibrillator, a ventilator and other anesthesia equipment, the “reanimation on wheels” left for the patient.
One medical team transported the patient from Turkey to Chernivtsi, another to take the patient to Dnipro. In the ward of the Istanbul hospital, Mr. Ihor met the doctors with tears in his eyes. I was moved when I heard the Ukrainian language. All the way to Chernivtsi, and later – from Chernivtsi to the Dnipro, doctors monitored vital functions, performed oxygen therapy, monitored blood pressure and saturation, performed cardiography and infusion therapy. The patient could no longer eat on his own, so he was fed parenterally, i.e., special high-nutrition food mixtures were administered daily.
“We did everything possible and impossible so that the patient returned home and was with loved ones in the last time of his life,” says anesthesiologist Larisa Savkevich.
After reaching his hometown, experts recall, Mr. Igor finally smiled.