Prof Angus Watson – a colorectal surgeon based at Raigmore hospital in Inverness – tells The One Show on BBC1 of life in Ukraine after working with medical charity UK-Med
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A second Inverness surgeon has spoken about his time in Ukraine working with medical charity UK-Med.
Prof Angus Watson, a colorectal surgeon based at Raigmore hospital, was featured in yesterday’s edition of the One Show on BBC1.
The short film showed him and another medical professional travelling to eastern Ukraine to work at a “pop up” field hospital which replaced an existing facility which had been damaged by tank shells.
Speaking before setting off he said: “Everyone is aware of the humanitarian crisis that is there. There is a sense of humanity that I feel that there is a population in need.”
He travelled from Inverness by train to Manchester airport before heading out to an area which had been briefly occupied by Russian forces with an ever present risk of attack – a siren went off during filming.
Prof Watson said he was shocked at the damage to the existing hospital and said: “Tank shells have gone through several areas of two or three floors – you can see the holes in the wall and an area where a shell went through a metal cabinet.”
The relentless shelling of the hospital meant patients had to be moved to safety and Prof Watson said: “When the hospital was under attack the staff brought patients down to this area. Indeed two children were born down here.”
The field hospital was built in just 12 days and was staffed by medical teams from both the UK and Ukraine.
Facilities included: an operating theatre, recovery area, 20-bed ward and A&E.
One of his first operations was a gallbladder operation on a local resident and he also operated on a soldier’s bullet wound in the lower leg.
He said: “It’s been an enormous privilege to be working with UK-Med in Ukraine and I am confident that we have made a long lasting difference to the lives of the patients and people.”
