Medical students anxious as health ministry enlists their help on coronavirus

Anna Babenko, a sixth-year medical student, will start working in the field earlier than she expected. Instead of getting ready for the final exams, as she normally would at this time of the year, the scholar is preparing to fight the spread of the novel coronavirus.

Based in Dnipro, the industrial city of 1 million people located 470 kilometers southeast of Kyiv, Babenko volunteered to work at the local forefront of the pandemic, an infection department at one of the hospitals.

She says that she is afraid of being infected with the coronavirus but understands that if everyone gives in to their fears, there will be nobody to get the job done.

“As students of a medical academy, we have to help,” Babenko told the Kyiv Post.

Babenko signed up for volunteering after the Ministry of Health called on medical students of the fourth, fifth and sixth years to help the healthcare system in the time of crisis. The ministry is also putting all interns to work, as the number of COVID-19 cases is rapidly growing in the country.

Ukraine has identified 116 coronavirus cases, one of the smallest amounts in Europe. Four of them were lethal, while one person recovered. But the number of cases in Ukraine has been growing following patterns seen in other countries suffering from the pandemic. The virus has struck more than 140 nations.

Local officials predict the infection has not peaked. So they are following the practice of enrolling medical students, like Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom have done.

But Ukraine’s plan on using students is still vague and scholars fear violations of their rights in a challenging time.

Uncertain duties

When Italy and Spain, Europe’s two epicenters of the pandemic, were hit hard by the spread of the disease, their healthcare systems were overwhelmed. Their hospital employees, who have been working in overdrive for weeks, desperately needed help. So the countries decided to speed up the graduation for the last-year medical students canceling their exams – thousands of graduates are now joining hospitals as fully-qualified doctors.

The same happened in the United Kingdom, where the government is taking extra measures to slow down the spread of the infection. Some of the British final-year medical students had their exams axed, while others took them online.

In Ukraine, however, the process of enrolling seems a bit chaotic as of now.

The health ministry started with putting all interns to work. In Ukraine, medical students have to go through six years of academic study. Then they become interns and work as such at hospitals from one to three years more, depending on the profession they choose. Every year of the medical internship has an academic semester when interns take classes and a semester of actual work.

So all of those interns who were on an academic semester have been transferred to hospitals now. They will take on their regular responsibilities and treat their own patients under supervision.

Then the ministry called on students of the fourth, fifth and sixth years to volunteer to work at hospitals, where COVID-19 patients are or will be treated.

Babenko says that only about 40 students from her medical academy stepped forward to help. They were told they would be provided with all necessary protective gear, however, no details on what exactly their duties would be.

On March 24, Deputy Health Minister Viktor Lyashko said that medical students will work as ambulance crews to back up family doctors, who normally visit patients at their homes but might be unable to see everyone when the number significantly grows.

According to Lyashko, student crews could measure patients’ temperature and evaluate the severity of their illness. He said that students will also be taught how to perform express tests for coronavirus to “reduce the load on other systems.”

But some believe that would put students at great risk and add little help to doctors.

One of them is Iryna Kleban, the head of the outpatient department at one of the hospitals in Kitsman, a town of 6,000 people located in Chernivtsi Oblast, some 530 kilometers southwest from Kyiv.

Kleban says that students usually have good theoretical knowledge, which is “still fresh” but because of the lack of experience, their work requires supervision.

“That will put even more load on doctors,” Kleban told the Kyiv Post.

The doctor with over 20 years of experience, says that working at patients’ homes is at times even harder than at a hospital because on location, doctors have to make quick crucial decisions alone on whether to leave a patient at home or take them to the hospital.

“How will students make these decisions?” Kleban said.

Apart from that, Kleban says that such work can be extremely dangerous, as students might be exposed to coronavirus-infected people at any moment.

“That’s like throwing them into the infection fire,” she said.

Uncertain rights

While the plan on enrolling students is still in progress, interns are already working at hospitals all over Ukraine.

Uliana Vavryniuk undergoes the first year of internship at a hospital in Lutsk, the administrative center of western Volyn Oblast, where one coronavirus case has been detected.

Vavryniuk says that their hospital is short in all protective gear – masks, gloves, antiseptics and suits. She says that their management received funds from the local authorities to buy all the necessary goods, however, they are extremely hard to purchase now, when suppliers appear to run out of them. The intern now uses some of the protective equipment that she bought herself.

Vavryniuk says that she is worried for herself and for her family, who are all medical employees.

“It would be better if we had protection,” she told the Kyiv Post.

In order to support medical stuff working during the epidemy, the Ukrainian government ordered hospitals to raise their employees’ salaries by up to 200%.

Although interns might potentially be exposed to the infection as well, that policy doesn’t apply to them. So those of them who have a scholarship will continue to receive Hr 3,200 ($115) per month, and those who pay for their education will keep paying while fighting the coronavirus spread.

So far, students were only asked to join the healthcare system voluntarily but some of them fear they all might be mobilized mandatorily if the situation worsens.

Stanislav Ponomarenko, a sixth-year medical student and an activist, communicates with thousands of his counterparts all over Ukraine. He says that the vast majority of them expressed no desire to volunteer.

“There is no proper protection – no masks, suits,” Ponomarenko told the Kyiv Post. “How can you go to war without weapons?”

That’s why Ponomarenko, who is based in Zaporizhia, a city of 800,000 people some 700 kilometers southeast of Kyiv, put together a list of demands the students want to be fulfilled before they start working.

Ponomarenko says that they want the health ministry to clearly formulate their responsibilities and rights. Just like in other countries, Ponomarenko believes graduates should have their exams canceled, as they will simply have no time to get prepared.

He says that those students involved in fighting the pandemic should get paid, be provided with all the protective equipment and transportation to make their way to work.

Nevertheless, Ponomarenko says that students know well what profession they chose and understand they are the ones to take care of public health.

“If these demands are met, we will work,” he said.