Health System
Ukraine has a strong medical foundation, with well-educated and dedicated physicians, nurses and other health professionals. However, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, years of underfunding left many hospitals with outdated facilities and limited access to modern training. Specialized burn care, one of the most resource-intensive fields in medicine, was hit especially hard.
Since Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022, the situation has become far worse. Hospitals have been damaged or destroyed, many medical professionals have been displaced, and the health system now carries a heavy load of war injuries, including severe burns in children caused by explosions, shelling and fires.
Burns
Burns are a serious and often overlooked global health problem. According to the World Health Organization, burns cause an estimated 180,000 deaths every year, most of them in low- and middle-income countries, and the rate of child deaths from burns is more than seven times higher in these countries than in high-income countries. Survivors often face lifelong disability and disfigurement, and long, costly treatment can push families into poverty.
About 12,000 Ukrainian children suffer burns every year, according to Ukraine’s national burn center in Lviv. Our own research in the Lviv region found that young children under five make up one third of all burn patients. Since February 2022, the war has added a new burden: the United Nations has verified more than 1,800 children injured in attacks, many with severe burns.
The difference in outcomes is dramatic. The best burn centers in high-income countries can save patients with burns over 90% of their body surface, while in many low-resource settings burns over 40% are often fatal.
Our Role
Since 2005, Doctors Collaborating to Help Children has worked with Ukrainian colleagues to close this gap through training, equipment, telemedicine, and treatment of Ukrainian children in the U.S. The war has made this work more urgent than ever.
Sources
1. World Health Organization. Burns – Fact sheet. 13 October 2023.
2. National Center “Unbroken”, First Medical Association of Lviv – Children’s hope: helping children with burns (2023).
3. Improving burn care and preventing burns by establishing a burn database in Ukraine. Burns. 2014.
4. OHCHR. Children’s rights in Ukraine report, March 2025 (data through 31 December 2024).